I recorded the talk I gave to the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh this week and you can listen to it here:
I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to such an interesting crowd and got some great questions (which aren’t included). I have high hopes we can get some future research collaborations with folks up there.
Do come along – more information can be found here
Six months after wildfires, Canada’s oil sands now hit by DiCaprio’s new film
Have they not suffered enough?
Taking a leaf from the playbook of ‘Dogs Pro Walking’ and ‘Turkeys Against Christmas’, the ICMM has today launched the 3rd edition of its Role of Mining in National Economies report which highlights how “mining can be a major driver of sustainable development.”
To be honest, this may well be a very good report, and I am sympathetic to the notion that mining has an important role to play in a countries development … if managed correctly. I’ve not looked at this report long enough to make a judgment as to its true strengths and weaknesses. What it does remind me of, however, is how I saw their report on the role of mining in Zambia ridiculed at a conference about mining while I was in Zambia in 2014. At that conference a respected Zambian academic told the audience that the best use of the report was as toilet paper. The comment was met with laughter, rueful nodding and zero contradiction. I know people at Oxford Policy Management who were involved in writing the report and am sure they worked hard and well. The simple fact of the origin of the report precluded it ever being taken seriously in Zambia.
So here’s my question, who is swayed by a report from the mining industry about how great the mining industry is? I would really love to know.
I’ll be presenting a paper on How does corporate social responsibility affect national politics? The case of mining in Ghana, Peru and Zambia at the annual Development Studies Association Conference in Oxford tomorrow. The abstract reads thusly:
This paper examines the national politics of mining and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Zambia, Ghana and Peru. The paper draws on research conducted as part of 3-year British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship looking at the role of international standards in mining company behaviour in developing countries. It begins by outlining political settlements theory, focussing on elite bargaining and the drivers of political stability. The paper then uses this conceptual framework to explore the ways in which CSR and the behaviour of mining companies affect national politics and natural resource governance in Ghana, Peru, and Zambia. Geographical and historical specificity are argued to be central to understanding the ways in which CSR affects political settlements in these countries, in particular the role of memory and the timing of resource booms. These are explored in each case study country to show the different meanings and functions CSR takes on in different regulatory contexts before examining how mining companies use CSR to attempt to minimise regulation and taxation burden, effectively aiming to produce enclave forms of extraction. Here, CSR is argued to be a useful window into the political activities of firms and an important part of how they engage in the national-level politics of host countries.
I’m in session P19 in 4-5.30pm Room 7 (Examination Schools). See you there!
I have, today, signed a contract for a book with Oxford University Press. This is great news. This book is provisionally entitled Risk and responsibility: The politics of mining, corporate social responsibility and development. Though, this may well change as one of the bits of feedback from the reviewers was that they didn’t like the title. (Perhaps I should steal less from Austen for the title. Dickens instead perhaps?).
Almost certainly what the book won’t look like
Here is a brief synopsis from the proposal:
Mining is at a pivotal moment. The recent commodities supercycle, in which mining companies expanded across the globe and boosted their CSR investment and activities, has ended. This expansion created multiple struggles and tension and has increased pressure from investors, national governments, civil society and local communities on mining companies to improve their environmental and social impacts. Expectations of mining company behaviour have been raised and are unlikely to fall. This book examines the drivers and consequences of the recent growth of CSR in the extractive industries. Risk and responsibility brings together literatures in geography, development studies and politics to examine of the political and development impacts of CSR in the mining sector. The book draws on over 200 semi-structured confidential interviews conducted in Canada, Ghana, Peru, USA and Zambia between 2011–2014 focussed on 6 case-study companies, to examine the functions and meanings CSR takes on across different scales of action. At the international level, CSR aims to attract capital and reduce shareholder risk; at the national level, it is used to improve the image of mining companies and curry favour with populations and regulators; at the local level, CSR profoundly reconfigures local political institutions to produce stable operating environments. In the mining industry, strategic pressures have come to be understood through the rubric of risk, for which CSR has come to be seen as the strategic tool which can unite the responses required of companies towards a range of stakeholders. Over eight chapters, Risk and responsibility examines the interplay of risk and responsibility at the heart of the political life of corporations.
It’s a ways off yet. My current best guess would be that it comes out in 2018.
Following the success of my last podcast I’ve decided to record my talks and stick them on this blog. So, here is the audio for my talk ‘Talking about politics: corporate social responsibility and development in Ghana, Perú and Zambia’ at Mining and Communities Solutions 2016, University of British Columbia, 5-8 June 2016.
Despite this being my first talk at a mining industry conference, it went down really well and provoked quite a bit of discussion. Listening again I hear it mainly as a masterclass in saying ‘erm’ a lot (I was rather nervous) but I did get my main points across quite well. I had little reason to be nervous it seems as my message – that we need to talk about CSR as a political intervention into host countries and communities – was broadly well received. This conference was a gathering of people who really do what to improve the impacts and benefits of mining for local communities and therefore very encouraging. I’ll be posting about my ‘take homes’ in the coming days.
Do let me know what you think.
