In my paper I will attempt to unpack local political trajectories and power dynamics that civil society actors and grass-root activists find themselves when they engage and respond to the presence of extractive industry (Liquefied Natural Gas project) in the province of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. The paper will contextualise and historicise local actors, attempting to indicate what shapes them as active agents in relation to international capital in a postcolonial setting. I will attempt to map out other actors, relevant for understanding local power dynamics – international NGOs, local and traditional authorities, state authorities and international capital companies. Such mapping of power dynamics, inspired by James Ferguson criticism of commonly used verticality of “state – civil society” opposition, will allow to better understand possibilities and constraints of everyday citizenship practice and shed light on existing modes of governmentality, which are significantly connected to transnational networks. The paper will become a basis for my master thesis, which, I hope, will be further supplemented with data collected during field study in Northern Mozambique.
Jevgenija Kovaliova . Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen . ekovaliova@yahoo.co.uk
