Postgraduate Course: Governing Mineral Extraction in Africa (PGSP11281)
Course Outline
| School |
School of Social and Political Science |
College |
College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type |
Standard |
Availability |
Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) |
SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits |
20 |
| Home subject area |
Postgrad (School of Social and Political Studies) |
Other subject area |
None |
| Course website |
None
|
Taught in Gaelic? |
No |
| Course description |
Reviewing statistics on Africa's declining share of world trade, Susan George remarked in 1993 "one can almost hear the sound of sub-Saharan Africa sliding off the world map." But in 2011 Africa seems to be back on the map. World market prices for "strategic minerals" are rising. Not only governments and multinationals based in western countries, but increasingly investors from China, India and other rising economic power-players are scrambling to secure their access to Africa's remaining mineral wealth and trying to forge personal and political alliances with the continent's leaders. Is Africa finding a new place for itself in the world economy, or simply back to its colonial role as provider of cheap raw materials for overseas manufacturing?
This course offers a critical introduction to current research on the historical, economic, social, political, environmental and geographical dimensions of mineral extraction in Africa. These topics are approached through theoretical literature and case studies of specific minerals, countries, enterprises and transport routes. The focus will not only be on official policy pronouncements by members of the elites who govern mineral extraction. We will explore the politics and conflicts surrounding mineral extraction in areas like the Niger Delta, Eastern DRC and the Zambian Copperbelt and critically examine consumer activism on 'blood diamonds' and other conflict minerals, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility and other emerging attempts at corporate self-regulation like the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. The daily realities of small-scale and artisanal miners, smugglers, militias and other foot-soldiers of extraction will also emerge in ethnographic detail. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites |
|
| Prohibited Combinations |
|
Other requirements |
None
|
| Additional Costs |
None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? |
No |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Delivery period: 2011/12 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
|
WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Lecture | Seminar Room 6, Chrystal Macmillan Building | 1-11 | 09:00 - 10:50 | | | | |
| First Class |
First class information not currently available |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcomes:
- Provide a comprehensive overview of the diverse factors shaping mineral extraction and its transnational governance in contemporary Africa.
- Compulsory reading and lectures will combine theoretically-oriented texts with detailed case studies around clearly defined sub-topics. These will give students an overview of the general course theme, but with enough specific facts to appreciate the wide diversity within it.
- Students are enabled to think critically and make informed interpretations of a wide range of past and current trends shaping fundamental realities in Africa and the world economy.
- Useful for students choosing to continue with academic work or pursue careers in a wide range of fields like development policy-making and practice in governmental or non-governmental organisations, consumer activism or indeed the worlds of international business and extractive industries.
- Course is specifically designed to empower students by drawing on their previously existing understanding and expertise, e.g. from (voluntaty or paid) work and mass media reporting on Africa.
- Preparation of group presentations will require students to self-organize in small teams to address a specific scientific and empirical question and finally display their results in a coherent manner and within limited time, making use of (audio)visual technology.
- Preparation of the essay / lecture diary will require students to practice their skills in scientific writing and literature-based research. |
Assessment Information
| Students are assessed by an essay of 4000 words. All essays are based on comparative work linking larger bodies of literature with case-study material. Students can either decide to suggest an essay topic within the overall course theme or be given one by the course convenor, who will be available for individual consultation. By week 5 students must prepare a 500 word abstract for their essay including a headline, key research question, outline of theoretical approach and preliminary list of references the student intends to use. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Seminar Programme:
Week 1: Introduction
Course practicalities; course topics, distribution of student group presentations
Lecture: A critical introduction to the "Resource Curse" thesis
Auty, Richard M. (1993). Sustaining Development in Mineral Economies: The Resource Curse Thesis. London: Routledge.
Macarthan Humphries, Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Stiglitz (2007): Escaping the Resource Curse (Introduction chapter).
Week 2: You Sign, We Dig. Mineral Extraction and Colonial State Formation in Africa
Lecture: Scrambling for Africa - Now and Then
Henning Melber and Roger Southall (2009): A New Scramble for Africa?, pp. XiX $ú 34 (Introduction and Chapter One)
Thomas Pakenham (1991): Leopold's Crusade. In: The Scramble for Africa, pages 11-23
Student presentation: Topic and literature TBC
Week 3: Governing Extraction: Africa's Place in the 21st Century World Order
Lecture: Problems for academics to "think outside the state"; transnational trade networks, organized crime and cross-border smuggling
Carolyn Nordstrom (2004): Invisible Empires, in: Bruce Kapferer (ed.) State, Sovereignty, War, pages 46 - 55
Student presentation: Mineral extraction, foreign investment and political order - the cases of oil in Angola and Copper in Zambia
James Ferguson (2006): Global Shadows, pages 194 - 210
Week 4: Out of Africa: Borders and Transnational Transport Routes of Extraction
Lecture: A journey from colonialism to the present and from the Copperbelt of Zambia to the Nambian harbour Walvis Bay
Wolfgang Zeller (2009): Danger and Opportunity in Katima Mulilo: A Namibian Border Boomtown at Transnational Crossroads. Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 35, Number 1, March 2009
Student presentation: The struggle for ownership by rural people living along another transport lifeline of the Copperbelt.
Jamie Monson (2006): Defending the People's Railway in the era of liberalization: TAZARA in Southern Tanzania, pages 113-130
Week 5: Let's Talk Oil I
Lecture: "Successful Failed States": The pervasive impact of the petro-economy on state formation and politics in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea region
Michael Watts (2004): Resource Curse? Governmentality, Oil and Power in the Niger Delta, pages 50-80
Ricardo Soares de Oliviera (2007): Oil and Politics in the Gulf of Guinea, pages 1-62
Student presentation: Equatorial Guinea - a petro dictatorship or 21st century colony?
Human Rights Watch (2009): Well Oiled. Oil and Human Rights in Equatorial Guinea. Parts I-III
Week 6: Let's Talk Oil II - Getting it Right This Time?
Lecture: What came first: Oil or conflict? Nigeria before 'things went wrong' and Uganda as an emerging oil state
Andrew Apter (2005): The Pan-African Nation. Oil and the Spectacle of Culture in Nigeria. Chapter One: Rebirth of a Nation, pages 22-51
Student presentation: Ghana's oil $ú a success story in the making?
Week 7: The Foot Soldiers of Extraction
Lecture: A bottom-up perspective on smuggling and the fine line between legal and licit
Willem van Schendel and Itty Abraham (2005): Illicit Flows and Criminal Things, pages 1-37
Student presentation: A close-up of the daily struggles by small-scale gold and diamond miners against state regulation and market liberalization
Eleanor Fisher (2007): Occupying the margins: Labour Integration and Social Exclusion in Artisanal Mining in Tanzania, pages 735-760
Week 8: Blood Diamonds are Forever $ú Consumer Activism and Corporate Responsibility
Lecture: A short history of De Beers and how the nasty side of bling bling led to the Kimberley Process
Ian Smillie (2005): Criminality and the Global Diamond Trade, in: Illicit Flows, pages 177 $ú 200
Richard Schroeder (2009): Tanzanite as conflict gem: Certifying a secure commodity chain in Tanzania
Student Presentation: Corporate Responsibility and attempts at global governance: the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM)
Global Witness (1998): A Rough Trade
Week 9: There Will Be Blood. Mineral Extraction and Warfare
Lecture: The fragmented field of war- and peace-makers trying to regulate the flows of mineral resources out of conflict zones.
Karen Ballentine and Heiko Nitzschke: Introduction, and Macartan Humphreys: Natural Resources and Armed Conflicts: Issues and Options, in: Ballentine and Nitzschke (2005) Profiting from Peace, pages 1-44
Student presentation: Lords of War and mineral extraction in Congo (DRC)
Koen Vlassenrot and Tim Raeymaekers (2009): Kivu's intractable security Conundrum. African Affairs, pp. 1-10
Nadira Lalji (2007): The Resource Curse Revisited - Coltan and Conflict in the Congo, pp. 34-37
Week 10: The Future is Here - China in Africa
Lecture: The rising superpower and the 21st century race for Africa's resources
Henning Melber (2007): The (not so) New Kid on the Block, in: China In Africa, pages 6 - 9
Ian Taylor (2007): Unpacking China's Resource Diplomacy in Africa, in: China In Africa, pages 10 $ú 25
Alden, de Oliveira and Large (eds.) 2008: Introduction. China Returns to Africa, pp. 1-15
Student presentation: A close-up look at the day-to-day realities of the Chinese push for Africa
Gregor Dobler (2008): Solidarity, Xenophobia and the Regulation of Chinese businesses in Namibia. In China Returns to Africa, pp. 237-255 |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
The seminar runs for 10 weeks (2 hours per week). A weekly lecture of 1 hour is followed be a seminar (1 hour) consisting of a 20min student group presentations (use of power point is obligatory) and guided discussion. Each week the overall course theme is addressed through a specific sub-topic grounded in the compulsory reading for each session. The topics for student group presentations will be discussed and distributed in the first course session. The course will make use of a course page on WebCT where students can access course information, literature and the lecturer's and student presentations. |
| Keywords |
Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser |
Dr Wolfgang Zeller
Tel: (0131 6)51 3134
Email: wolfgang.zeller@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary |
Miss Madina Howard
Tel: (0131 6)51 1659
Email: Madina.Howard@ed.ac.uk |
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copyright 2011 The University of Edinburgh -
1 September 2011 6:40 am
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