Reading Mozambique’s mega-project developmentalism through the workplace: evidence from Chinese and Brazilian investments

DOI zum Zitieren der Version auf EPub Bayreuth: https://doi.org/10.15495/EPub_UBT_00007919
URN to cite this document: urn:nbn:de:bvb:703-epub-7919-1

Title data

Cezne, Eric ; Wethal, Urikke:
Reading Mozambique’s mega-project developmentalism through the workplace: evidence from Chinese and Brazilian investments.
In: African Affairs. Vol. 121 (2022) Issue 484 . - pp. 343-370.
ISSN 1468-2621
DOI der Verlagsversion: https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adac019

	Format: PDF Name: Reading Mozambiques Mega Project Developmentalism Through the Workplace.pdf Version: Published Version Available under License Creative Commons BY 4.0: Attribution
	Download (241kB)

Project information

Project title:	Project's official title Project's id Africa’s Infrastructure Globalities (Infraglob) 759798 MultiChina project 302001
Project financing:	European Research Council Norwegian Research Council

Abstract

Propelled by a commodities boom and expanding South–South investment, mega-projects have reshaped the politics of labour in many African settings. Reflecting on such dynamics, this article critically engages with questions of employment, skills development, and contestation re-configuring capital–labour encounters in the ‘Chinese’ and ‘Brazilian’ workplace in Mozambique. We analyse two mega-projects: the Maputo Ring Road, implemented by the China Road and Bridge Corporation, and the Moatize Coal Project, led by the Brazilian mining company, Vale SA. Engaging with the complex realities at project ground level, the article unpacks how workplace regimes and outcomes reflect an intricate, multi-scalar array of spatial encounters, sector-specific characteristics, and national political economies. For both cases, this is associated with common promises of development and prosperity for Mozambique. While such promises take on different ideational guises, we show that the Chinese and Brazilian workplaces expose, nonetheless, overlapping patterns of inequality, contention, and hostility, reinforced by broader vulnerabilities and imbalances in global production networks and the Mozambican political economy. By providing a ground-level reading of the multi-scalar forces at play in the workplace, this article sheds light on the relationship between emerging South–South global encounters, national political realities, and labour geographies in African contexts shaped by mega-projects.

Further data

Item Type:	Article in a journal
Keywords:	Mozambique; Development; China; Brazil
DDC Subjects:	300 Social sciences 300 Social sciences > 300 Social sciences, sociology and anthropology 300 Social sciences > 320 Political science
Institutions of the University:	Faculties Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies > Chair Sociology of Africa Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies > Chair Sociology of Africa > Chair Sociology of Africa - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jana Hönke
Language:	English
Originates at UBT:	Yes
URN:	urn:nbn:de:bvb:703-epub-7919-1
Date Deposited:	02 Oct 2024 10:32
Last Modified:	02 Oct 2024 10:43
URI:	https://epub.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/7919

Download Statistics

Download Statistics

Download Statistics

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year