Gold and godfathers: Local content, politics, and capitalism in extractive industries

Abstract

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.