Publication
Title
Gold and godfathers : local content, politics, and capitalism in extractive industries
Author
Abstract
By zooming in on the concept of ‘local content’, this article speaks to the debate on extractive industries and development. It challenges two fundamental assumptions of the mainstream local content literature: that production linkages will develop if an enabling environment is created, and that local content is beneficial for local people. Based on almost 600 interviews and focus groups in four mining concessions in Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) it focuses on how local content policies are translated into concrete practices – more particularly around the granting of contracts and employment. In doing so it unravels the political dimensions of local content policies and their structural embeddedness in large-scale extractivist projects. It is argued that local content policies are implemented in complex political arenas, where the power holders use them as political instruments to enhance profit accumulation and control rents. Moreover they are embedded in the structural dynamics that permeate large-scale extractivist projects, producing (new) patterns of exclusion.
Language
English
Source (journal)
World development. - Oxford
Publication
Oxford : 2019
ISSN
0305-750X
DOI
10.1016/J.WORLDDEV.2019.06.028
Volume/pages
123 (2019) , p. 1-10
Article Reference
UNSP 104605
ISI
000486107800003
Medium
E-only publicatie
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Towards a new theoretical framework for linkages from large-scale mining: bringing in power and the production of access and exclusion.
InforMining? An in-depth study of informalization processes in global gold production.
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 08.07.2019
Last edited 25.11.2024
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