Rainforest Capitalism

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hendriks
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Timber Production ◽  
European Company ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Face ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Gendered Power

Congolese logging camps are places where mud, rain, fuel smugglers, and village roadblocks slow down multinational timber firms; where workers wage wars against trees while evading company surveillance deep in the forest; where labor compounds trigger disturbing colonial memories; and where blunt racism, logger machismo, and homoerotic desires reproduce violence. In Rainforest Capitalism Thomas Hendriks examines the rowdy world of industrial timber production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to theorize racialized and gendered power dynamics in capitalist extraction. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Congolese workers and European company managers as well as traders, farmers, smugglers, and barkeepers, Hendriks shows how logging is deeply tied to feelings of existential vulnerability in the face of larger forces, structures, and histories. These feelings, Hendriks contends, reveal a precarious side of power in an environment where companies, workers, and local residents frequently find themselves out of control. An ethnography of complicity, ecstasis, and paranoia, Rainforest Capitalism queers assumptions of corporate strength and opens up new ways to understand the complexities and contradictions of capitalist extraction.

scholarly journals ‘Who Can Sing the Song of MSF?’

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-39
Author(s):  
Myfanwy James
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Security Management ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Local Staff ◽  
Conflict Processes ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
North Kivu

This article explores the everyday practice of security management and negotiations for access conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Based on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and archival exploration, it examines the experience of MSF Congolese employees, who navigate a complex politics of humanitarian fixing and brokerage. Their role in MSF is simultaneously defined and circumscribed by their political and social situation. MSF’s security management relies on local staff’s interpersonal networks and on their ability to interpret and translate. However, local staff find themselves at risk, or perceived as a ‘risk’: exposed to external pressures and acts of violence, while possibilities for promotion are limited precisely because of their embeddedness. They face a tension between being politically and socially embedded and needing to perform MSF’s principles in practice. As such, they embody the contradictions of MSF’s approach in North Kivu: a simultaneous need for operational ‘proximity’, as well as performative distance from everyday conflict processes.

scholarly journals Tales from the Congo River: Catching Mami Wata

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Braun
Keyword(s):  
Feedback Loop ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Cultural Symbols ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Congo River ◽  
The Face

Digital culture produces new dislocations, proximities and anxieties. Central here is “meme” culture, whose fluid movement morphs in transmission, drawing on older cultural symbols to create a feedback loop. One folkloric aquatic figure from the African continent and its diasporas, known as Mami Wata, exemplifies this memetic force that is carried over into the digital realm. Mami Wata is dualistic: human and water creature, beautiful and terrifying, pre-colonial and modern. She is fluid, not bound by traditionally grounded mobilities, and her origins are mysterious. Further, she thrives through time and place via rumour and her message and meaning are in constant flux. She is also a symbol of temptation, which carries with it anxiety. Mami Wata is said to haunt the banks of the mighty Congo River and its tributaries, waiting for new victims, thus serving as a cautionary tale, warning people of these potential fluvial supernatural encounters. As we will see, in the face of digitalisation and globalisation, contemporary memes and viral videos of Mami Wata give us a screen to view our own anxious projections. And yet she also reveals the possibility of encounter: an other who shows us another way. Drawing from extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) beginning in 2012, what emerges are parallels between Mami Wata and virality, and how they represent both an attitude and an ambiance in Kinshasa. What is more, we find that Mami Wata shows us a structure by which rumours, memes and in-group culture endure through time, not despite, but thanks to their mysterious origins and fluid meanings.

Making Masculinities on the Street

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Daily Survival ◽  
The World ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Gendered Power ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

Raewyn Connell’s seminal texts, including Masculinities (1995), The Men and the Boys (2000), and others have contributed to a nuanced understanding of masculinities as both contextual and relational, including gendered power relations, division of labor, emotional relations, and symbolism. This article seeks to extend Connell’s approach by using this nuanced lens of masculinities to examine the lives of boys living on the streets of a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The article highlights the experiences of everyday relationships over three years for 19 street boys, aged 13–18, and the role of city spaces in their lives. It suggests that the spatiality and temporality of street boys’ relationships shape their masculine practices and identities, as played out in their everyday interactions with each other and with girls, women, and men as part of their daily survival. A mosaic of street masculinities emerges, that is both fluid and complex, shedding light on previously unexplored masculinities in an understudied group and part of the world.

scholarly journals Conservation planning for Africa's Albertine Rift: conserving a biodiverse region in the face of multiple threats

Oryx ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Plumptre ◽  
Sam Ayebare ◽  
Deo Kujirakwinja ◽  
Dan Segan
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Conservation Planning ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Area Network ◽  
Restricted Range ◽  
Albertine Rift ◽  
Agricultural Conversion ◽  
Conservation Costs ◽  
The Face ◽  
Republic Of The Congo

Abstract The Albertine Rift is one of Africa's most biodiverse regions, but is threatened by habitat loss as a result of agricultural expansion and human development. Previous studies estimated that 30% of the region has been lost to agricultural conversion and we estimate here that 33% is allocated for mining concessions. For conservation planning, we used niche models for species endemic to the Albertine Rift and those that are globally threatened. We assessed where to conserve these species using three scenarios: (1) a baseline assuming equal conservation costs across all grid cells in the study area, (2) a scenario locking in existing protected areas (i.e. always selecting them by default) and assessing which unprotected areas require conservation, and (3) a scenario considering mining planned across the region. Marxan analyses produced similar results for the three scenarios, highlighting the importance of existing protected areas and the value of several community-managed or provincial protected areas in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The current protected area network covers 134,246 km2 and an additional 64,586 km2 would be required to ensure the conservation of all threatened and endemic species outside the parks and wildlife reserves. However, if trying to avoid mining concessions this increases to 145,704 km2, an area larger than the existing protected areas. Some mining concessions harbour species with a restricted range and would thus need to be protected to ensure the persistence of threatened and endemic fauna and flora. These mining concessions should be challenged by the conservation community.

Constitutional Incorporation of the (Collective) Freedom to Govern Mineral Wealth: Comparing the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Zambia

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Alexandra Carleton
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Mineral Wealth ◽  
The People ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
The Republic

Constitutionalism may be gaining ascendancy in many countries in Africa. Yet thorough investigation of the extent to which current constitutions accord to the people their internationally recognised right to governance of their mineral wealth under Article 1(2) of the ICCPR has been lacking. Understanding the existing framework of rights which may support claims to land and natural resources is important. Constitutions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Zambia demonstrate the reality of multiple, overlapping land interests and the limitations upon a people's claim to freely govern their mineral wealth.

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