Suchergebnisse

This article suggests to incorporate the idea of unequal exchange into the analysis of global raw material chains. For this purpose, unequal exchange is defined as the exchange of claims on the working time of others, and thereby as an unequal relation of control. Empirically, this unequal control relation can be analysed (1) by describing company towns as microcosms of global control relations, (2) by identifying 'bottlenecks' of chain governance and (3) by showing the development of gaps in salaries within global commodity chains. This framework can enrich and deepen the commonly applied analysis of 'value added' per node. Bauxite mining in Guinea and its entanglements with the global aluminum commodity chain serve as illustrative examples. Adapted from the source document.

Going beyond a static conceptualization of the mining enclave, recent research increasingly scrutinizes the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) schemes as a means of territorial entanglement. Several authors refer to the notion of the "corporate gift" to describe these control and coping strategies as well as the resulting power relations between companies and the population around the production facilities. In this article, we focus on electricity provision as an example for such a "gift". Extensive field research in the Guinean mining areas of Siguiri, Kamsar, and Mambia showed that in all of these areas, the mining companies not only acted as "givers" of electricity, but also handed over the bill for this electricity provision to the state. Confronted with this curious fact of state-sponsored CSR, this article questions the foundations of the arguments around the notion of the corporate gift and comes to the conclusion that these three electrification projects were, at the same time, acts of "political sacrifice". This concept points beyond the obvious conclusion that mining companies try to maximize their legitimization efforts in an increasingly competitive environment and underlines the role of the state in "company-community" relations and the maintenance of extractive enclaves.

In the last fifteen years there has been a commodities boom, which is comparable in its consequences with the commodity crisis of the 1970s and can be considered as a potential turning point in the international division of labor worldwide. Many governments in the global South use the rekindled rivalry between the old and new industrialized countries for resources in order to improve their position within the global value chains. In this issue, fundamental relationships between commodity policies and development are analyzed with recourse to theoretical perspectives and concepts of unequal exchange, the global Good chain research and the (neo-)extractivism. The contributions develop theoretical links and distinctions between these perspectives and illustrate these on bauxite mining in Guinea, the politico-economic development in Latin America, the commodity trade of the GDR, the palm oil production in Indonesia and the EU Raw Materials Initiative in respect of Africa. Adapted from the source document.