Project results – phase II
Following up closely on the insights presented in Maputo, the project’s Phase II was
designed as a follow-up, carrying the same title and aiming at completing, supplementing,
and further developing in empirical and theoretical scope the work and results from the first
project phase. In continuing the processual approach that highlights the study of social
situations of intense interaction that range from cooperation and coordination to conflict and
disputing, we aimed at more systematically containing the concept of creativity within the
whole research framework. Concerning the study of resources, we took up new theoretical
developments shifting from significations to materiality and technology. We did this in order
to account for the different ways in which social change and political power are related to the
specific material and social technologies of resource extraction, production, conversion,
enrichment, refinement, marketing, distribution and consumption. Here, we followed the
newest theoretical developments by looking at the materiality of oil itself and at what the
substance affords in relation to an anthropological study of resources (Mitchell 2011;
Richardson and Weszkalnys 2014). In this regard we refined our empirical research focus
into five follow-up work packages building both on the insights of Phase I and on these new
theoretical assumptions: practices that guide the emergence of institutions that govern oil in
the oil state's metropolis; economic encounters between Chinese oil industry and African
trade; incidences of looting and measures to secure oil and oil production facilities; public
politics of naming, blaming and claiming in oil conflict settings; and mutual images of China
and Africa in oil related encounters. We launched the second project phase during a project
meeting in Lisbon, where the whole project group gathered to present and discuss our
findings with international experts during the 5th European Conference on African Studies
(‘African dynamics in a multipolar world’ from 27-29 June 2013).
Soon after this meeting, the project group had to accommodate several unplanned timeline
modifications, which we communicated to the German Research Foundation early in 2014.
As a result, the DFG granted an extension of the project without additional budget (see
attachment Kostenneutrale Laufzeitverlängerung) until April 2017. A conjuncture of events
caused these modifications: New career options for Dr. Andrea Behrends (three semesters
of replacement professorships in Hamburg and Halle/Saale) and Dr. Remadji Hoinathy (Postdoc research grant by the Volkswagen Foundation) interrupted their research in Chad and
led to the replacement of Remadji Hoinathy by a new PhD candidate, the highly qualified
Cameroonian junior researcher Chama-James Tabi (see attached CV and research outline).
In July 2013 our Nigerien research coordinator Dr. Hadiza Moussa tragically died in a car
accident. As she was primarily involved in organizing junior research and PhD recruitment in
Niger, both activities were postponed until February 2014 when we could recruit our former
Masters student Aboubacar Attahirou as the projects new PhD candidate in Niger. Both new
PhD candidates in Niger and Chad have started their work in March of this year, six months
later than anticipated. We should note that it took four months to launch an international call
for applications to which about twenty candidates from various African countries and Europe
applied. In close consultation with our partners in Niger and Chad, we decided for the two
selected candidates.
Furthermore, recent abductions caused an enormous rise in insecurity in Niger, particularly in
the vicinity of oil sites, which hampered the research projects of Nikolaus Schareika and
Jannik Schritt (see the attached Intermediate Report). Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Schareika had to
cancel his planned fieldtrip to Diffa (Niger). Jannik Schritt went back to Niger for a briefer
than planned phase (from 28 February - 26 March 2014 in Niamey, Zinder and Bakin Birgi).
We anticipate conducting the planned empirical research during the second year of the
current project phase although research in Niger is due to the rise in insecurity currently
limited to the capital Niamey.
In spite of these problems we empirically covered a range of themes, events and sites
summarized in the following list:
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Interviews with Chadian oil experts in the capital about oil technologies and spatial
transformations in the Chadian oil producing zone
Fieldwork on theft (looting), security and changes in social organization within the
southern Chadian oil region, the new oil region in Bongor and around the refinery in
Djermaya
First fieldwork on the dynamics of oil exploitation and local competition for power in
southern Chad (new PhD candidate in Chad)
Continued field work about an extended case study regarding political dynamics of oil
in Niger
New fieldwork on the Nigerien oil infrastructure, the organization of transporting oil
and conflicts that evolved around the “Nigerization of oil”.
Fieldwork in N’gourti, the oil region in Niger’s far east (this fieldwork was carried out
by Dr. Hadiza Moussa and its evaluation serves as a basis for the new Nigerien PhD
candidate’s research)
Fieldwork in the city of Zinder with the regional administrative body on Zinder’s
development plan of the usage of the oil refinery’s revenues
Fieldwork at the oil refinery in Bakin Birgi about actors’ strategies to make use of the
Chinese oil economy in the form of trade, construction, security or workforce in
producing oil
Follow-up fieldwork on practices to access the ‘oil rent’ in N’Gourti (Eastern Niger)
Continued field work in Niamey, Niger, and N’Djamena, Chad, covering various sites
of national politics (e.g. ministries, the parliament, lobby groups) and the press
Fieldwork in N’Djamena, Chad, and Niamey, Niger, on the oil related construction
boom and spaces signifying a new nationality and image as “the show case of
Central Africa” (Chad) on the one hand and Niamey as the show case of Niger
(Niamey Nyala) on the other.
The conceptual focus of Phase II informed several articles, some of which have now been
published while others are still pending due to an extremely long review process (Behrends,
Park & Rottenburg 2014; Hoinathy and Behrends 2014; Behrends, Davidoff & Yessenova
under review; Behrends & Hoinathy under review; Schritt 2013; Schritt 2014). These articles
reflect the analysis and theorizing resulting from Work Package Group I of our project
proposal for Phase II (see our Phase II proposal concerning Work Package Group 1:
“Analysis, systematization and theoretical use of the data produced in the first project
phase”). In the articles of Behrends et al. not only the concepts of materiality and technology
provided a perspective on (dis)ordering processes in oil-producing Niger and Chad; Jannik
Schritt also applied the notions of socio-technical arrangements and resource assemblage as
instructive to better understand the political claims that emerge in Niger around uranium
exploitation (Hecht 2002; 2010) and contrasted them with oil production (Schritt under
review). The ideas around inscription further directed our attention to certain logics of risks
that are inscribed in oil-producing technologies that transfer the risk from oil companies to the
local population living in the oil-producing area. It triggered the question whether the
rationality that is inscribed in technologies (artifacts and models) can travel or whether it is
creatively adapted (hybridized), rejected or discarded (see Akrich 1992; Behrends, Park &
Rottenburg 2014; Rottenburg 2009).
The data gathered so far enable us to contribute to all three of the approved theoretical focus
points of the Priority Program – spatiality / space, technologies and narration – as they have
been discussed and elaborated upon during the PP’s workshops in Maputo (2012) and in
Berlin (2014).