When the late Tanzanian sociologist Chachage SL Chachage asked in 2005 if Africa's poor could ‘inherit the earth and its mineral rights’, it was not to reduce the complexity of discourses about the role of natural resources in Africa's development to a simple phrase. Indeed, debates about this role – and especially about what is often referred to as the ‘scramble’ for Africa's resources – are ongoing. Themes such as the character of resource exploitation regimes, corporate practices, and environmental and social impacts continue to engage scholars, researchers and policy makers. Underlying the research on these themes is an attempt to understand the conditions under which wealth – in particular in the form of natural resources – becomes a major reason why communities remain mired in poverty and conflict.
As more systematic studies are being done in various parts of the continent, some consensus has been reached on the need to continually interrogate the community–resource exploitation interface. A number of scholars are, for instance, moving away from the view of ‘the community’ and ‘the natural environment’ as separate realms, having found that the environment and the natural resources are integral to the way indigenous communities imagine and reproduce themselves. The concept of socio-ecological assemblage is being deployed by scholars in ways that make it possible to see the community ‘in’ the environment, not outside of it, and to highlight the imperative of inclusive, socio-ecologically sensitive natural resource exploitation.
However, state and corporate policies and practices relating to land use, mineral exploitation, and compensation for ecological damage or social displacement resulting from extractive activities lag behind this understanding, as does the critical arena of corporate–community relations. As a result, in many countries resource-endowed communities remain virtually excluded from the design and mobilisation of exploitation regimes. Yet as the consequences of such regimes begin to manifest themselves, disaffected communities are bound to burst upon the national scene as protesters, irritants and militants, or in other ways create conditions that further frustrate the realisation of sustainable development in the natural resource sector.
As the articles in this special issue show, the community–resource exploitation interface remains a critical arena for making sense of how Africa is being shaped by the growing global demand for petroleum, forest resources, minerals, and the like. In other words, however the present-day scramble is defined by the state, corporations, local communities or non-governmental organisations, the acid test must be the socio-ecological conditions in the resource-rich communities and how such conditions are explained.
We are confident that this issue offers readers not just a thorough debate but also some insight into how the exploitation of natural resources could help to stimulate socio-economic and ecological renewal in Africa in the 21st century. We hope the issue will contribute to further research and policy engagement.
Development Southern Africa invites the submission of papers for future issues on a range of topics pertinent to the challenges of development in the region, on the continent and beyond. We trust that this journal will continue to make a meaningful contribution to key policy debates.