Navigating plural legal constellations at the coal mining frontier in Mozambique

In this article, I will focus on the emergence and dynamics of different laws, standards, and norms in the context of an extractive frontier. The extractive frontier is presented as a place where multiple jurisdictions overlap and in which new governance constellations and practices emerge. This article focuses on the laws and standards related to resettlement processes and compensation for loss of residence, land, and livelihood in the surroundings of two coal mines in Tete province, Mozambique. Resettlement processes are one of the most direct ways in which populations are affected by extractive projects and often associated with human rights violations. The paper focuses on resettlement officers of the mining companies who are at the forefront of planning and implementing such processes. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews with resettlement officers and participation in their daily lives, the article details how these individuals position themselves in relation to multiple sets of laws and rules (e.g. Standards of the International Finance Corporation, state mining law and resettlement regulation, land law, human rights law) and a variety of actors (e.g. mining companies, international finance institutes, government agencies, local populations, NGOs). Resettlement officers often work with standards that surpass national law but are in their implementation of regulations also curtailed by a seemingly absent state, divergent company policies, critical civil society organisations, and global commodity markets. A focus on the everyday intricacies of the work of resettlement officers, shows their power and constraints, and the dynamics by which hierarchies of rules and laws become unsettled at the extractive frontier

Corporate sovereignty: Negotiating permissive power for profit in Southern Africa

The growing engagement with sovereignty in anthropology has resulted in a range of concepts that encapsulate how various (non-state) actors execute power. In this paper, we further unpack the concept of ‘corporate sovereignty’ and outline its conceptual significance. Corporate sovereignty refers to performative claims to power undertaken by (individuals aligned to) corporate entities with profit-making objectives within a state-sanctioned space. This contrasts with claims made by other (non-state) actors who operate in a permissive space that (regularly) lacks this legally grounded relationship with the state. By unpacking this state-sanctioned permissive space and highlighting the role of the state as the arbiter, our approach to corporate sovereignty offers a new comparative analytical perspective to theorize how sovereignty is performed and opens ethnographic avenues to explore how sovereignty is negotiated and co-produced across diverse localities. To elucidate our argument, we draw from ethnographic fieldwork conducted on coal mining companies in Mozambique and private security companies in South Africa. By focusing on cases that differ, we want to show the multitude of ways in which corporate sovereignty is enacted and takes shape

Resettlement in Mozambique: Development, Displacement and Control in the (Post)Colony

Mozambique has a long history of resettling people in urbanizations that are centrally initiated and shaped by development discourses and governments’ desire to control populations. This article places the recent resettlements in the surroundings of extractive projects in the country in a historical context, by comparing the aldeamentos created by the Portuguese colonial administration with the aldeais comunais by FRELIMO after independence. It focuses on successive resettlement initiatives in the Tete province, where mining-induced resettlement has recently received much attention. Despite the disparate political contexts, it demonstrates similarities between the resettlement projects, which have resulted in hardship for the dislocated populations

Imagining Booms and Busts: Conflicting Temporalities and the Extraction-"Development" nexus in Mozambique

This article presents three sets of divergent and competing understandings of temporalities in relation to the extractive industry in Mozambique, in order to explore the dynamics of power within expectations of "development" raised by extractive mega projects. The first set of understandings involves a forward-looking, long-term view of the extractive industry's potential to bring transformational "development" to Mozambique and its people, generally expressed by the extractive industry and associated actors. Subsequently, the article zooms in on a specific extractive sector; the coal industry in Tete province. The second set is characterized by expressions of volatility by an elite group of businesspeople who were lured by the promise of a coal boom, and who explain the urban "development" in terms of before, during and after "the boom". The third set delves into the experience and expressions of "waiting" by people who were resettled by coal mining companies in Tete. By presenting these three sets, the article aims to go beyond binary analyses of the local versus the national, and the community versus the company or state, and offers a layered analysis of the disconnections between understandings of "development" and the expected wealth of resource extraction

Navigating plural legal constellations at the coal mining frontier in Mozambique

In this article, I will focus on the emergence and dynamics of different laws, standards, and norms in the context of an extractive frontier. The extractive frontier is presented as a place where multiple jurisdictions overlap and in which new governance constellations and practices emerge. This article focuses on the laws and standards related to resettlement processes and compensation for loss of residence, land, and livelihood in the surroundings of two coal mines in Tete province, Mozambique. Resettlement processes are one of the most direct ways in which populations are affected by extractive projects and often associated with human rights violations. The paper focuses on resettlement officers of the mining companies who are at the forefront of planning and implementing such processes. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews with resettlement officers and participation in their daily lives, the article details how these individuals position themselves in relation to multiple sets of laws and rules (e.g. Standards of the International Finance Corporation, state mining law and resettlement regulation, land law, human rights law) and a variety of actors (e.g. mining companies, international finance institutes, government agencies, local populations, NGOs). Resettlement officers often work with standards that surpass national law but are in their implementation of regulations also curtailed by a seemingly absent state, divergent company policies, critical civil society organisations, and global commodity markets. A focus on the everyday intricacies of the work of resettlement officers, shows their power and constraints, and the dynamics by which hierarchies of rules and laws become unsettled at the extractive frontier

Imagining Booms and Busts: Conflicting Temporalities and the Extraction-"Development" nexus in Mozambique

This article presents three sets of divergent and competing understandings of temporalities in relation to the extractive industry in Mozambique, in order to explore the dynamics of power within expectations of "development" raised by extractive mega projects. The first set of understandings involves a forward-looking, long-term view of the extractive industry's potential to bring transformational "development" to Mozambique and its people, generally expressed by the extractive industry and associated actors. Subsequently, the article zooms in on a specific extractive sector; the coal industry in Tete province. The second set is characterized by expressions of volatility by an elite group of businesspeople who were lured by the promise of a coal boom, and who explain the urban "development" in terms of before, during and after "the boom". The third set delves into the experience and expressions of "waiting" by people who were resettled by coal mining companies in Tete. By presenting these three sets, the article aims to go beyond binary analyses of the local versus the national, and the community versus the company or state, and offers a layered analysis of the disconnections between understandings of "development" and the expected wealth of resource extraction

The Forgotten Sons of the State: The Social and Political Positions of Former Government Soldiers in Post-War Mozambique

This article shows that 21 years after the signing of the peace accords, the Mozambican state continues to struggle with the social and political niche of the more than 90,000 demobilized soldiers. The article departs from the observation that the memory construction of the past liberation and civil war done by the FRELIMO government was highly influential in creating and sharpening categories of veterans, determining which "type" of veteran has access to privileged resources and which is excluded. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the problematic relationship between ex-combatants of the government army and the Mozambican government is explored. For veterans, this relationship is characterized by frustration, hope, patrimonialism and the use of the threat of violence. This plays out in negotiations involving material aspects (particularly pensions), but also symbolic aspects of being regarded as worthy veterans

Surplus to Extraction: Resettlement as a "make live" intervention in Mozambique

One of the direct consequences of the growing extractive industry in Mozambique is the displacement of people from their homes and lands. Building on the work of Tania Li (2010), we regard extractive projects as one of the key ways in which “surplus populations” are produced in Mozambique, as people lose access to their lands without being substantially incorporated into the job markets that extractive projects create. In this paper, we critically explore Li's framework of “make live” interventions and “let die” scenarios for conceptualising the consequences of being made surplus to extraction. We focus on involuntary resettlement processes in Mozambique as make live interventions (in intention). While Li describes make live interventions in terms of a choice made by governing actors, we see resettlement as a messy and conflict-ridden process that is often experienced as a let die scenario. We also reveal the heterogeneity of governing actors (primarily state and company) involved in make live interventions and the claims of dependency of populations affected by resettlement that such interventions produce. We draw from research material gathered during different resettlement processes and phases in extractive contexts in Cabo Delgado and Tete provinces in Mozambique

Surplus to Extraction: Resettlement as a "make live" intervention in Mozambique

One of the direct consequences of the growing extractive industry in Mozambique is the displacement of people from their homes and lands. Building on the work of Tania Li (2010), we regard extractive projects as one of the key ways in which “surplus populations” are produced in Mozambique, as people lose access to their lands without being substantially incorporated into the job markets that extractive projects create. In this paper, we critically explore Li's framework of “make live” interventions and “let die” scenarios for conceptualising the consequences of being made surplus to extraction. We focus on involuntary resettlement processes in Mozambique as make live interventions (in intention). While Li describes make live interventions in terms of a choice made by governing actors, we see resettlement as a messy and conflict-ridden process that is often experienced as a let die scenario. We also reveal the heterogeneity of governing actors (primarily state and company) involved in make live interventions and the claims of dependency of populations affected by resettlement that such interventions produce. We draw from research material gathered during different resettlement processes and phases in extractive contexts in Cabo Delgado and Tete provinces in Mozambique

Surplus to Extraction: Resettlement as a "make live" intervention in Mozambique

One of the direct consequences of the growing extractive industry in Mozambique is the displacement of people from their homes and lands. Building on the work of Tania Li (2010), we regard extractive projects as one of the key ways in which “surplus populations” are produced in Mozambique, as people lose access to their lands without being substantially incorporated into the job markets that extractive projects create. In this paper, we critically explore Li's framework of “make live” interventions and “let die” scenarios for conceptualising the consequences of being made surplus to extraction. We focus on involuntary resettlement processes in Mozambique as make live interventions (in intention). While Li describes make live interventions in terms of a choice made by governing actors, we see resettlement as a messy and conflict-ridden process that is often experienced as a let die scenario. We also reveal the heterogeneity of governing actors (primarily state and company) involved in make live interventions and the claims of dependency of populations affected by resettlement that such interventions produce. We draw from research material gathered during different resettlement processes and phases in extractive contexts in Cabo Delgado and Tete provinces in Mozambique