**PROJECT SUMMARY Doctoral Dissertation Research**

**Washing Ashore: Offshore Oil Production and Corporate-Sponsored
Development in Angola**

A complex and contradictory new form of development has emerged in
oil-producing regions of Angola. Corporate-sponsored development
initiatives are in some ways corporate attempts to achieve legitimacy in
their extractive relations with a corrupt state and to decrease
long-term production costs, but they are also influenced by
transnational, national and local forces. The purpose of this proposed
study is to examine the structure and character of these new
corporate-sponsored development initiatives in Angola by investigating
the structure of petro-capitalism, how transnational NGOs, state actors
and communities at the site of extraction influence these policies and
in what ways pollution shapes associated patterns of community-corporate
relations. The proposed research will engage with the literature on
resource extraction, particularly focusing on the facets of extractive
economies andpetro­capitalism, corporate social responsibility, and
natural resource access and control. Employing both statistical and
qualitative data, through an extensive study of corporate-development
projects in oil-producing provinces and complementary ethnographies of
oil pollution and corporate development in sites with disparate
histories of violence, it considers the dynamics of petro-capitalism at
multiple scales.

The *intellectual merit *of this research lies in its effort to both
broaden and deepen the literature on natural resource politics,
particularly on oil, by exploring the new dynamics of
corporate-sponsored development and the community-corporate relations
unique to offshore oil production. Furthermore, the *broader impacts *of
delving into the local politics of oil production in an understudied
area open avenues for participation of underrepresented groups. Few
studies have been conducted outside of the capital of Luanda, fewer
still within Cabinda and Zaire provinces. Moreover, drawing attention to
the disparate distribution of compensation for environmental damages
across provinces and within communities will highlight both political
and gendered struggles. This study will demonstrate the complex social
relations embodied within the new corporate face of development and its
broader imprint on resource politics at multiple scales.

**PROJECT DESCRIPTION Doctoral Dissertation Research**

**Washing Ashore: Offshore Oil Production and Corporate-Sponsored
Development in Angola**

Angola is sub-Saharan Africas second largest oil producer, 1 yet a
majority of its population lives in poverty. The average life expectancy
at birth is 40.2 years, and a third of Angolan children will not live to
celebrate their fifth birthday (CRS 2003, UNDP 2003). These intense
contradictions between resource wealth and an impoverished population
are apparently typical of the so-calledresource curse 2, but the way in
which the oil industry is responding to these conditions is anything but
typical. Transnational oil corporations have now begun to implement a
range of development projects in Angola, from building schools and
clinics with local NGOs to \$50 million agriculture and education
projects in partnership with USAID and UNDP.^3^ These extractive
businesses represent the epitome of global capitalism in their
vertically-integrated arrangement of operations spread across national
borders. They are better known for their interest in maximizing profits
and returns to shareholders than for altruism or respect for local
stakeholders (Korten 1995; Kuttner 2000). What explains this apparent
shift in their practices? In my research, I argue that corporations are
responding to particular transnational, national and local-level
pressures in the context of their development agendas. This research
investigates the emergence, characteristics, and implications of a new
development pattern emerging in Angola: corporate-sponsored development.
My study poses three questions: **1) What is the structure of
petro-capitalism in Angola? 2) What shapes corporate-sponsored
development in oil-extracting regions? 3) How do extractive activities
and related pollution affect patterns of community - corporate
relations?**

Historically, Angolas oil wealth has provided few benefits to the
populace due to elevated military budgets during the countrys 27-year
civil war 4 and mismanagement of revenues associated with corruption and
opaque accounting (GW 2002). Even with the end of the war in 2002,
recent increases in oil prices^5^ and progress toward transparency of
the governments oil accounts, the Angolan people are wondering why oil
revenues have not improved their impoverished standard of living (IRIN
2004b and Bessa 2004). The answer is debt. Much of Angolas \$9.9 billion
in debt was financed through oil-backed loans effectively mortgaging
most of Angolas present oil production at high rates (EIA 2004; HRW
2004). Angola plans to increase oil production exponentially in the next
four yearsreaching an estimated two billion barrels per day by 2008 (EIA
2004). Yet the government recently negotiated a fresh \$2 billion
oil-backed loan with China to finance countrys reliance on imported
goods and services (IRIN 2004a). The intractable oil-backed debt and
resulting insolvency of the Angolan government has presented an
opportunity for corporations to try on their development hats.
Corporations have positioned themselves as leaders ofSustainable
Development at the 2002 World Summit in Johannesburg, embracedCorporate
Citizenshipas essential to African development at the 2002 African
Economic Summit, and promotedPartnering for Security and Prosperity at
the 2004 World Economic Forum.^6^ However, corporations claim to be
attempting to turn rhetoric into reality as a means to confront the dire
disparities in Angola. Not only does the nature of the Angolan context
as a virtual

1 Nigeria leads sub-Saharan African oil production at 2.14 million
barrels per day, with between 25 and 32.5 billion barrels in proven oil
reserves (DOE 2004). Angolas proven reserves are estimated at 5.4
billion.

2 See Sachs and Warner 1995 and Ross 1999.

3 ChevronTexaco has negotiated a \$50 million, five-year partnership
with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and U.N.
Development Program (UNDP) in education, vocational training and
small-scale agricultural development in Angola.

4 The civil war began following independence from Portugal in 1975 and
continued, driven by cold war support and resource revenues, until Jonas
Savimbi, the leader of UNITA was killed in 2002. The war was mainly
fought by the ruling party, MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertação de
Angola), and UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de
Angola). While these factions were funded during the cold war by the
USSR and US, respectively, the MPLAs formal transition to liberal
democracy in 199 1-2 forced the factions to turn to resources to fund
their operations. The MPLA relied on oil and UNITA on diamonds to
finance their continued efforts.

5 Human Rights Watch estimates that for every \$1 increase in the price
of a barrel of oil, the government receives between \$150 and \$250
million in excess revenues (IRIN 2004).

6 This trend has been bolstered by international financial institutions
(IFIs) encouragement of neo-liberal policies, which gear the development
agenda toward privatization and liberalization effectively constricting
governments role in development to providing a good environment for
foreign direct investment (Stiglitz 2003; Korten 1995.)

blank-slatecreate a potentially rewarding environment for
corporate-sponsored development, it also provides a unique opportunity
for examining these initiatives often operating in the absence of
alternative strategies.

Corporations are not operating in a vacuum and I will examine several
types of pressures pushing corporations to invest in development in
Angola: international NGOs, the state itself, and activity (including
violence and organizing) at the local/regional level. Macro-level
studies undertaken by international NGOs have shown that oil
corporations working in Angola have impeded development by enabling
government opacity, corruption, conflict, dependence on foreign
investment and a narrow economic base (Dietrich 2000; Global Witness
2002). Second, despite claims by the Angolan Ambassador to the U.S. that
government expenditures on social spending would increase to 33% of GDP
from a war-time low of 5%, the Angolan states indebtedness continues to
divert oil revenues from development aims to debt payments (Leopold
2004, HRW 2004). Third, the contradictions are most blatant at the local
level, closest to where extraction is taking place: the same
corporations threatening human health by way of oil spills or gas leaks
as extractors claim to be benefactors through development initiatives.
However, many community members feel these initiatives are not
sufficient to meet their needs. My recent research shows local people
have recognized these inconsistencies and learned to voice their claims
to the corporation in new ways . This study will draw on these insights
to demonstrate the complex social relations embodied within the new
corporate face of development and its broader imprint on resource
politics at multiple scales.

**Broader Impacts**

This proposed program of research will have broader impacts in terms of
increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in Angola.
Deterred by reputations of instability and political impediments in the
provinces, few scientists have conducted studies outside of the capital
of Luanda, and fewer still have addressed the oil-producing provinces of
Cabinda and Zaire. By conducting this research, I hope to enhance future
opportunities for study within these regions. Furthermore, the results
of this study will draw attention to the disparate distribution of
compensation for environmental damages across provinces and within
communities, thus highlighting underrepresented actors in both political
and gendered struggles. Following this period of fieldwork, I plan to
disseminate the findings of this research at conferences and in
publications in scholarly journals.

**Intellectual Merit**

The intellectual merit of this proposed research lies in its relevance
to contemporary development trends. It will both broaden and deepen the
literature on natural resource politics, specifically theories related
to petro-capitalism, by recognizing the particularities of offshore
modes of production and delving into the unique dynamics between state,
corporate and community actors in the contradictory context of corporate
pollution and development. Finally, this proposed study will provide the
first detailed analysis of the factors shaping corporate-sponsored
development in areas of resource extraction, thus advancing
understanding of the strategies by which transnational, national and
local actors can participate in this new trend toward corporate-led
development.

**[Literature Review]{.underline}**

Sites of resource extraction function as critical theatres in which
articulations of power are performed and negotiated between state
actors, transnational corporations, and local people. This project
relies on a political ecology framework to explore multidimensional
struggles over access and control of natural resources (Peluso 1992;
Peet and Watts 1996; Peluso and Watts 2001); in this case, over the
benefits (development) and costs (pollution) associated with oil
production. I will locate my analysis within the literature on resource
extraction, particularly focusing on the facets of extractive economies
andpetro-capitalism, corporate social responsibility, and natural
resource access and control.

**1. Extractive Economies and Petro-Capitalism**

Structural analyses of resource extraction founded in political economy
draw on the influences of dependency theory (Cardoso and Faletto 1979;
Frank 1966). They recognize that opportunities and constraints on
resource access and control are determined by the relations of
production within an extractive industry, wherein natural resource rich
peripheries are progressively underdeveloped by capital rich cores
(Hecht and

Cockburn 1990; Bunker 1985). Thesenature-exporting societiesbecome
locked into patterns of development which reinforce internal
specialization in the exported commodity and external dependence on
foreign exchange (Coronil 1997). Furthermore,narrowly extractiveor
enclave sectors, such as mineral and oil extraction, are characterized
by unidirectional resource flows, which provide benefits only
togate-keeping elites(Cooper 2001). Thus, echoing colonial patterns of
resource exploitation, as the process of capital accumulation
accelerates, the opportunities diminish for marginalized people (Arrighi
1970).

Ross (1999) notes that prescient structural theorists warned against
development centered on resource exports for three reasons: 1) ever
worsening terms of trade tend to exacerbate inequality between rich
industrialized countries and poor primary commodity exporters (Prebisch
1950; Singer 1950); 2) international commodities markets are marked by
drastic price fluctuations (Nurske 1958; Levin 1960); 3) the dominance
of foreign multinationals in resource extraction impedes growth in the
rest of the economy because these companies repatriate their profits
rather than making local investments (Hirschman 1956; Baldwin 1966). In
addition, the discovery or sharp price increase in exportable resources
such as oil or gas results in an economic distortion called Dutch
Disease, which drives up the cost of living, encourages imports over
local industrialization and undermines the agricultural sector (Parvin
and Dezhbakhsh 1988). These distortions can be profoundly damaging in
undiversified or dependent economies and are difficult to overturn
without severe policy adjustments.

Scholars use the termpetro-capitalismto describe the paradoxical
coupling of vast resource wealth and desperate poverty in oil-dependent
economies (Hodges 2002). Once a country embarks on the path to oil
production, the seemingly inevitable process ofpetrolizationfosters
state-centered, personalized and exclusionary patterns of power that
weaken state institutions, impede democracy and limit economic
diversification within extractive states (Karl 1997; Ross 2001). The
corruption attending oil wealth is attributed, in part, to the slippery
material characteristics of oil as a natural resource and a commodity
that can grease many palms (Watts 1994; 1997). Even when state policies
attempted diversify the economy bysowing the oilin Venezuela (Coronil
1997) and investing oil wealth back into the ailing agricultural sector,
they merely transformed independent landlords into a type of rentier
class dependent on oil subsidies (Karl 1997).

With over eighty percent of government revenues accruing from crude oil
production, the Angolan state and its component actors are extremely
petrolized: the political elite thrives on resource rents illegally
diverted from public accounts or privately accumulated through
associated business negotiations and demonstrates little will for
adopting policies to diversify the economy or invest in social services
(Global Witness 2002; Hodges 2002). The fantastic rents, signing bonuses
and royalties from offshore oil have often bypassed the national bank
entirely, flowing to offshore accounts: over four billion dollars in oil
revenues disappeared from state coffers between 1998 and 2002 (Pearce
2002). What funds remained were also channeled into benefits for the
elite: rather than use its budget to create educational opportunities or
municipal utilities for all Angolans, the state allocated 35% of its
education budget to overseas scholarships for young elites and \$400
million for subsidies on electricity, water, transportation and housing
to its *nomenklatura *(Le Billon 2001a: 65).

Corporate-sponsored development in Angola takes the form of projects
mandated by the state through production contracts negotiated between
the Angolan state and the particular corporation operating in fixed
production blocks. These confidential agreements outline the power
relations between the state and corporation at multiple levels by
stipulatingthe conditions under which capital has access to the land
\[or offshore areas\] for the purposes of production and
accumulation(Fine 1984 as quoted in Watts 2001). These conditions
include, but are not limited to: schedules for payments and royalties
accrued to the state, stipulations on sourcing of Angolan goods and
employees, and state-ordered development initiatives. Furthermore, the
contract often states what type of development projects to undertake,
where the corporation should implement these projects, and the required
value of the investment.

I propose to examine the structure of petro-capitalism, linking patterns
of oil production with corporate investment in the oil-extracting
provinces of Angola. I posit that forms of investment are directly
related to the specific nature of petro-capitalism, thus taking into
consideration the technological and spatial differences between onshore
and offshore modes of production, the character of transnational oil
companies engaging in production and histories of violence or resistance
within communities living in or near the site of

extraction. As such, I will map out the investments undertaken by four
different corporations, across four production zones from onshore to
ultra-deepwater offshore, within two provinces with disparate histories
of violence. Within this context, I examine the ways in which
international NGOs, the state and local communities have shaped
corporate-sponsored development.

**2. Corporate Social Responsibility**

Transnational corporations are increasingly embracing Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR), not only as a welfare transfer, but also as a
business strategy for increasing long-term profitability proportional to
the investment. CSR projects also help meet or deflect the demands of
watchdog groups and pressures imposed by the people in areas that they
are working. This is particularly the case where humanitarian needs have
been left unfulfilled in the wake of neoliberal reforms and budget cuts
(Van Marrewijk and Were 2003; Husted 2003; Deri 2003; Hopkins 1997). But
what does Corporate Social Responsibility mean and does it actually
achieve what it claims to? A review of CSR and the oil industry in
Angola defined the term as the commitment of business to contribute to
sustainable economic development working with employees, their families,
the local community and society at largetoimprove quality of life in
ways that are both good for business and development(Ettenborough and
Shyne 2003). Much like the termSustainable Development encompasses
economic development, social development and environmental protection
(UN 2002), Corporate Social Responsibility is comprised of overlapping
economic, social and environmental responsibilities. Thus, providing
education and skills training to Angolans is economically ^7^and
socially responsible, while ceasing natural gas flaring at the wellhead
is environmentally and socially responsible. Moreover, both activities
may be eligible for tax write-offs in Angola.

Transnational oil corporations use CSR as a means to counter critique of
their operations in underdeveloped or politically sensitive areas.
Extractive industries accounted for more than fifty percent of Africas
exports and sixty-five percent of all foreign direct investment in the
1990s (CRS 2003: 5). During the recent Extractive Industries Review,
non-governmental organizations launched protests against World Bank
support of extractive industries claiming that theycan do more harm than
good by entrenching a destructive and predatory elite(Beattie 2004).
Transparency coalitions such as Publish What You Pay actively

encourage corporations to report their payments of taxes and royalties
to governments with opaque accounting practices, like Angola, in hopes
that transparency will encourage development. However, BPs good
intentions of publishing its payments to the Angolan government were met
with severe reprisal: the

corporation nearly lost its production contract for violating the
confidentiality clause. Thus caught between the Scylla of publishing
their payments and Charybdis of international critique, I contend that
transnational oil corporations may sponsor development projects as a
means to earn legitimacy by dissociating their contributions to
development with a notoriously corrupt government.^8^

Corporate-sponsored development may also encompass projects proposed by
the corporation and approved by the state. These initiatives are
separate from those mandated by the state in the production contract.
They may be devised within the corporation or solicited by local people,
yet preliminary research indicates the former appears to be more common
than the latter. Corporations may propose these projects for three
purposes, which may overlap: to create a positive transnational image,
to decrease their national operating costs, and to improve relations
with local people. Here, I propose to investigate how corporations in
two different provinces of Angola are attempting to balance competing
pressures from multiple scales through specific development initiatives.
The two provinces, Cabinda and Zaire, have locale-specific histories of
violence, pollution effects, and patterns of CSR initiatives, which will
provide fruitful grounds for comparing the importance of local
conditions on corporate policy and development activity.

**3. Natural Resource Access and Control**

State natural resource policies frequently marginalize local natural
resource users politically, economically, and ecologically (Blaikie
1985; Blaikie and Brookfield 1997). Oil production in areas as diverse
as Indonesia, Colombia, Ecuador and Nigeria has engendered both
ecological and social ruptures as

7 My recent research shows that expatriate workers can cost up to eight
times as much to employ as Angolans in the same position.

7.  Transparency International ranked Angola as one of the ten most
    corrupt countries in the world (TI 2003).

ecosystems are degraded by pollution and social systems debased by
corruption and violence as individuals and villages compete for a share
of the revenues (Sangkoyo 2003; Dunning and Wirpsa 2001; Sawyer 1996;
Okonta and Douglas 2001; Watts 1997 and 2001). In Angola, state
officials and oil corporations in the capital of Luanda negotiate
production contracts and cede concessions without considering the
impacts on resource

9 Without recognition of multiple systems of resource management within
the formulation phase, natural

users.

resource policies can do little but remain exclusionary (Ribot 1995).

Given that 97% of Angolas oil is produced offshore, the associated
production contracts ought to consider customary systems governing
fisheries access and control. My initial research concurs with studies
indicating that artisanal fishing communities have complex tenure,
regulatory and arbitration systems for controlling access to and use of
offshore fisheries (Durrenberger and Palsson 1987; Olomola 1998).
However, offshore oil production poses a unique problem for
fisheries-dependent communities: oil spills, pipeline leaks and
processed water disposal are often dispersed by wave action and tides or
absorbed by organisms before they can visually detect harm or claim
compensation for damages.

Compensation is a key form in which corporations shape development in
extractive regions. While development projects are task-based, may be
instituted at any time and are granted to whole villages, compensation
is a monetary payment given at a specific time to a particular
individual with a grievance against the corporation, usually related to
pollution or constrictions on natural resource access. In Angola,
ChevronTexaco, producing offshore of Cabinda province granted
compensation to fishermen whose nets became oily at the time of the 1999
spill, while TotalFinaElf, producing onshore in Zaire province has given
compensation to farmers whose manioc plants and cashew trees were pulled
to clear space for oil wells.

Compensation payments are based largely on oral testimonies and
environmental evidence thereby opening a political space^10^ for local
people to demand development initiatives in the rights-based language of
accountability rather than appealing to more nebulous corporate notions
of charity or responsibility. My recent research shows that local people
are framing their development demands in the context of narratives on
pollution causing injury to human health, environmental harm and damages
to their livelihoods. An elderly man argued that corporations should
pave roads and provide public transportation so that the next time there
is a gas leak, people can get to the hospital. Another interviewee
claimed that corporations should give local farmers new seeds and
fertilizers from South Africa because oil production five miles offshore
has polluted onshore fields.^11^ Local people have developed these
narratives because they are an effective means to secure development
without criticizing the government. In this study, I will explore the
interactions between development initiatives, compensation, and local
practices around natural resources.

**[Research Design and Methodology]{.underline}**

As argued above, a set of transnational, national and local pressures
have converged to influence corporate actions in Angola to depart from
conventional extractive aims and to directly engage in development
projects. A transnational transparency movement spawned by international
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in Angola has criticized
oil corporations for their support of a government more interested in
investing in personal gains than national development. As such, oil
corporations have dissociated their extractive activities from the
underdevelopment of the country by engaging in development initiatives
under the rubric of CSR , distinguishing corporate-sponsored projects
from development schemes undertaken by the Angolan state. However, state
interests are not absent from all corporate-sponsored development
initiatives. I claim that the specific projects mandated in the context
of the production agreement provide an avenue by which the state can
interpolate its desires despite corporate implementation. Local
communities also play a

9 A senior official in Sonangol, the national oil company and
concessionaire for Angolan oil blocks, said during a recent interviewWe
were thinking about oil. We didnt think about fishermen.The Environment
Basis Law and Conventions were published by the Ministry of Fisheries
and Environment in 1999, but the actual regulations (developed in
consultation with oil companies) have not yet been released.

10 Political space is an analytical term comprising the social practices
and strategies through which the poor can change their condition (Blom
2002; Engberg-Pedersen and Webster 2002).

11 Clearly I agree that local people deserve proper infrastructure and
tools for agricultural development whether or not corporations have
harmed them or their environment. However, what I am questioning is why
local people would frame their needs in these terms.

role in shaping corporate initiatives through their histories of
resistance, protest and cooperation. Lastly, I posit that community
activism and approval can not only shape the patterns of development
within oil-extracting regions, but that specific forms of corporate
intervention, such as compensation, can significantly restructure the
terrain on which communities make claims on the corporation.

**Study Sites**

This study will focus on the two main oil-producing provinces in Angola:
Zaire and Cabinda. Despite their geographical proximity, their
historical trajectories of violence and resistance differ markedly.
Prior to the Berlin Conference of 1884, Portugal induced local leaders
to sign treaties establishing Portuguese rule in both Kongo (present-day
Zaire province) and Cabinda so as to prove their territorial control to
other colonial pretenders. The illiterate nominal leader of the
emasculated Kongo kingdom, Dom Pedro V, signed a declaration of
submission to Portugal, mistaking it for a note of gratitude for a
gold-backed chair (Marcum 1969). Cabindan leaders negotiated the Treaty
of Simulambuco accepting the status of Portuguese protectorate in
exchange for protection from the neighboring Belgians.

The independence of the Belgian Congo in 1960 and the clashes between
Portuguese and the nascent independence movements beginning in 1961
resulted in further dislocations of the northern populations: Bender
(1980) estimates that between 1960 and 1970, sixty percent of the
population in Zaire province fled into neighboring, newly-independent
Zaire. Cabindas independence movement, MLEC (Movimento de Libertação do
Enclave de Cabinda) was born in 1960 and greatly strengthened by
discoveries of oil in 1966. MLEC based its argument for an independence
separate from that of Angola through the Treaty of Simulambuco under
which Cabinda had been governed as distinct from the Angolan colony.
During negotiations to grant concessionary rights to Cabindas subsurface
resources to Zaires president Mobutu, Portugal appeared poised to grant
governing power to FLEC^12^ (MacQueen 1997). However, the MPLA^13^
occupied Cabinda in 1974 and Portugal upheld the occupation based upon
support of the action by the FNLA and UNITA^14^ and the lack of
disapproval from the Organization of African Unity *(ibid).*

The tentative power sharing agreement between the FNLA, the MPLA and
UNITA reached at the Alvor Accords disintegrated before Portugal granted
Angola its independence. Violence between the rival factions escalated
with US and South African covert support for the FNLA and UNITA and
Soviet Union and Cuban support for the MPLA. Despite the collapse of the
FNLA in the mid-1970s, the war between UNITA and the MPLA stretched on,
first funded by cold-war tensions and then fueled by resource revenues.
The heavy involvement of South African forces until the 1988 New York
Accords had centered the fighting in the Southern part of Angola, where
Savimbi located his UNITA camp at Jamba. However, as South Africa
withdrew, US support funneled through Mobutus Zaire, as high as \$90
million under George Bush in 1990, became more important to UNITA and he
relocated his base to the northern province of Uíge (Tvedten 1992).
Despite a short peace under the Bicesse Accords and elections in 1992,
UNITA occupied most of rural Angola. It effectively severed the flow of
one-third of Angolas oil revenues from reaching the MPLA by destroying
the Soyo oil base in 1993 and was extracting up to \$1 million in
diamonds daily from the Lunda provinces by 1996 (Brittain 1998).
However, the MPLA concentrated on keeping oil revenues flowing from
Cabinda by installing Cuban forces to protect the American Gulf Oil
facility, and successfully turned the tide of the war to its advantage
with arms imported on mortgaged oil revenues. Ultimately, oil gave the
MPLA the upper hand in the war as increases in oil revenues and
signature bonuses of \$935 million on new ultra-deep water concessions
flowed into state coffers in the late 1990s (Hodges 2002).

In 2002, the MPLA killed Jonas Savimbi and laid the civil war to rest.
The state then turned its focus to repressing the FLEC secessionist
movement in Cabinda by installing 30,000 troops in a province with only
100,000 people. Though the government has recently claimed it has
quashed FLEC-FAC, local people still speak of the continuing movement
for independence.

**1. What is the structure of petro-capitalism in Angola?**

12 MLEC renamed itself FLEC (Frente de Libertação do Enclave de
Cabinda).

13 The Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) has ruled the
country since independence.

14 The União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) was
founded by Jonas Savimbi after he split from the FNLA in 1963/4.

Angola produces most of its oil in concession areas calledblocks 15
located offshore of the northwestern provinces of Cabinda and Zaire.
Each block is operated by a corporateoperator responsible for production
activities within the geographical limits of the concession as well as
implementation of development projects associated with the block as
negotiated in the context of the production contract. I have chosen to
examine six major blocks controlled by four operator corporations in the
two main oil-producing provinces of Angola.

+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
|             | *           |             |             |             |
|             | *Operator** |             |             |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
|             | **          | ***Shallow  | *           | **          |
|             | *Onshore*** | Offshore*** | **Deepwater | *Ultra-deep |
|             |             |             | Offshore*** | Ofshore***  |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| ***Zaire*** | Congo Basin | Block 2     | Block 15    | Block 31    |
|             |             |             |             |             |
|             | Total       | Ch          | Esso        | BP-Amoco    |
|             | (To         | evronTexaco | (           |             |
|             | talFinaElf) |             | ExxonMobil) |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| **          | None^16^    | Block 0     | Block 14    | None^17^    |
| *Cabinda*** |             |             |             |             |
|             |             | Ch          | Ch          |             |
|             |             | evronTexaco | evronTexaco |             |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+

Structure of Production - I have gathered historical statistics on
prospecting, exploration and production by block between 1918 and 1990
from the American Association of Petroleum Geographers Journal. I will
gather these statistics from 1991 to the present from Energy Information
Agency Country Reports distributed through the Department of Energy and
from articles I have collected from *Revista Energia, *the Angolan
Energy Review. I am confident that I will be able to fill any gaps in
data through interviews with state or corporate officials. From this, I
will develop a timeline of production statistics for each block, with
particular attention to which oil fields were producing in a given year.
This timeline will provide a proxy for corporate capital investments and
each blocks contributions to government oil revenues.

Structure of Corporate-Sponsored Development Initiatives - I have
accumulated data from ChevronTexaco on the type, value and time of
investments made in Cabinda, but I will now collect data on investments
made in other provinces and by other corporations. This includes both
projects corresponding to production blocks (i.e. state-mandated) and
proposed by the corporation. These data can be found in press releases
on corporate websites, articles in the *Journal de Angola, *and through
interviews with corporate officials eager to share information on their
companys social investments. I plan to assemble a time-sensitive map of
corporate-sponsored development projects that can be compared to the
production timeline for a picture of the pace, distribution and forms of
petro-capitalist development in the two provinces. This analysis of
production statistics and corporate-sponsored development initiatives
will illustrate the structure of petro­capitalism within these two
provinces and provide vital background data for the following two
questions.

**2. What shapes corporate-sponsored development in oil-extracting
regions?**

I hypothesize that the specific forms and amounts of corporate-sponsored
social development are influenced by three sets of actors: transnational
NGOs, national state actors and local NGOs, communities, individuals
that engage in resistance or cooperation. To show the respective roles
of each of these, I will collect data on the following.

1\. Transnational I will interview representatives of NGOs working in
the transparency movement (i.e. those who are signatories to the Publish
What You Pay campaign) in order to understand the bases of power (e.g.
international media attention, collaboration with IFIs, and/or
national-level civil society strengthening) which enable NGOs to
influence corporate activities. How do they see corporations
responding/not to their

15 Shallow-water block 0 off Cabinda ranks as the highest producer at
550,000 barrels per day, although newly producing fields in deepwater
blocks 14 and 17 off the coast of Zaire province are shifting
production, and corporate attention, to this area.

16 At present the operators for onshore Cabinda blocks North
(Occidental), Central (Devon Energy), and Southern (Roc Oil) are not
engaged in extraction.

17 No blocks presently available for Ultra-deepwater off Cabinda as
these areas fall under joint-development agreements with the Republic of
Congo (Brazzaville).

efforts at promoting transparency? What are their reactions to
corporate-sponsored development initiatives? Have corporations engaged
in dialogue with NGOs in the formulation or implementation of such
initiatives? How have various NGOs responded? I will also follow the
transparency movement through the articles in the *Journal de Angola
*and the independent newspapers, such as *O Angolense, O Apostolado, A
Nação, *and *A Capital. *In addition, I will refer to transparency
reports I have collected since the end of the war in 2002 from the
Publish What You Pay campaign, the Extractive Industries Review, and the
Extractive Industry Trade Initiative, as well as campaign-related
exposés by Global Witness, Christian Aid, Catholic Relief Services, Open
Society and Human Rights Watch. These data will enable me to map the
trends in the transparency movement in order to assess to what extent
corporations have adopted their rhetoric and/or policy recommendations
in response to the transnational campaign.

2\. National I will review documentation on production contracts for
each block to determine what development initiatives have been mandated
by the state. Given that production contracts are confidential
documents, I will have to rely on secondary sources such as corporate
press releases and newspaper archives online, especially as reported by
the Angolan Press Organization, in order to gain much of this
information. I will also interview provincial and national-level
officials from the Angolan government and the national oil company
Sonangol to learn whether any corporations have failed to implement
state-mandated programs within the concession contract. I will also seek
information on whether the state has recommended other development
initiatives outside of the scope of the production contract and whether
corporations adopted those suggestions.^18^ Lastly, I will compare the
forms of state-mandated initiatives undertaken in Zaire in Cabinda
provinces to discern whether state concerns regarding the sticky
political situation^19^ in Cabinda permeated the corporate-sponsored
development agenda. Through patching together these sources, I will be
able to show to what extent state interests influence
corporate-sponsored development agendas.

2.  Local I will record oral histories of violence, resistance, protest
    and cooperation between corporations and communities in
    oil-extracting regions. I have conducted focus groups and interviews
    in communities affected by oil pollution in each province, but I
    plan to assemble a broader timeline including military campaigns,
    instances of pollution, protests, strikes, court cases, arbitration
    and collaborative efforts between oil corporations and communities
    within each province from 1990 to the present. I will rely on
    reports from the *Jornal de Angola *and the aforementioned
    independent papers for background information on each instance, but
    will deepen these accounts with information gleaned from oral
    histories of individuals living in the oil-extracting regions.
    Finally, I will also speak with municipal, provincial and
    national-level government officials about their perceptions and
    memories of violence, resistance, protest and cooperation between
    corporations and communities in these two provinces.

In addition to the aforementioned strategies, I will also interview
corporate officials regarding their perceptions of how the three arenas
have shaped their development initiatives. Particular attention will be
paid to comparing the narratives of the corporate officials with NGO
representatives, government officials and local people.

**3. How do extractive activities and related pollution affect patterns
of community - corporate relations?**

The research design for this question founded on a comparative case
study approach (Ragin 1987 and 1992) of the conjuncture between
corporate-sponsored development and pollution within the oil-producing
provinces of Cabinda and Zaire where transnational oil corporations both
engage in extraction and development. These case studies will provide
the grounds for a relational comparison of the trajectories^20^ of
corporate-sponsored development. I plan to look at one instance of
corporate-sponsored development and pollution in communities in each
province: a school and a February 2004 onshore gas leak in Totals

18 In my previous time in Angola, government officials have been eager
to tell me what duties have been left unfulfilled by the oil
corporations, so I feel that this information will not be difficult to
obtain.

18. As a resource-rich enclave (see LeBillon 2001), Cabinda has been
    home to secessionist movement headed by FLEC-FAC (Frente de
    Libertação do Estado de Cabinda - Forças Armadas de Cabinda) since
    the 1960s.

19. This study follows Gillian Harts use of the term trajectories as a
    means toconvey the ongoing processes through which sets of
    power-laden practices in the multiple, interconnected arenas of
    everyday life at different spatial scales constantly rework places
    and identities(2002: 13). This allows for contrast between onshore
    and offshore production areas and among companies.

operations in Pangala, Zaire province and a fisheries development center
and a December 1999 offshore oil spill in Fútila, Cabinda province for
which ChevronTexaco was responsible. Though the people along the coasts
of these provinces are separated by the Zaire River and a forty-mile
strip of the Democratic Republic of Congo^21^, they are similarly
dependent upon subsistence agriculture and small-scale fishing in the
same waters for their livelihoods.^22^ However, only ten percent of
fishermen received compensation for their losses at the time of the
spill in Fútila^23^ and though those poisoned by the gas leak in Pangala
were provided with medical care at the time of the accident, none got
compensation for damages to their health. Thus, I contend that although
the scale and type of pollution as well as the corporation responsible
for damages differ in these two cases, the trajectories by which
corporate-sponsored development and/or compensation are implemented
influence community-corporate relations, especially the way in which
local people frame their claims to development when presenting them to
the corporations.

I have conducted focus groups and semi-structured interviews of men and
women affected by pollution incidents in Pangala and Fútila as well as
traditional leaders from those areas. The findings from this period
indicate that people in these two communities and neighboring
communities employ narratives about pollution as a means to make claims
to corporate-sponsored development. I will review national and
international news articles covering the incident, compensation or
specific project giving careful attention to the way in which
corporations respond to the incident. I plan to deepen this narrative by
interviewing more people from those communities and offering
complementary viewpoints from local priests and nuns, NGO workers,
municipal and provincial government officials as well as corporate
representatives. Within this context, I will seek to analyze which
groups are effectively able to garner compensation and why. Lastly, I
will interview the appropriate corporate officials on each incident and
their response to it as well as their view of the affected
communitiesclaims. Furthermore, I am presently working on obtaining the
data for oil spills from 1990 to the present in these six blocks in the
two provinces through a Ministry of Fisheries contact. If I am able to
obtain this information, it will be very useful in determining how many
instances of pollution translate into compensation or transmute into
corporate-sponsored development.

**3. Preparation and Research Qualification**

A National Science Foundation Graduate Research fellowship has supported
my continued work on extractive economies and transnational corporate
interventions in Africa as I transitioned from previous work on the
diamond industry of Botswana to the oil industry in Angola. My research
background in extractive economies guided me as I created a
comprehensive report on the global structure of the oil industry in
Spring 2002 for the UC Berkeley Petrogroup supervised by Dr. Michael
Watts and conducted research on the political economy of oil and
resistance in five countries in order to publish a set of five fact
sheets for the 2003 Oil and Human Rights conference at UC Berkeley.

In the field, I have spent a total of five months out of an eleven-month
research plan. The first two-month trip was devoted to a summer
fellowship with the Human Rights Center at Berkeley in association with
the Angola Instituto de Pesquisa Económica e Social (A-IP). During this
time I performed over forty semi-structured interviews of NGO staff,
representatives of oil corporations, present and former oil industry
employees, provincial government officials, church leaders, local
traditional leaders (both *sobas *and *reis do povo), *people affected
by recent oil spills in Soyo and Cabinda, and officials in the Ministry
of Environment, the Ministry of Fisheries and the Ministry of Petroleum.
Through these interviews, I compiled a history of

21 The former kingdom of Kongo included both Soyo and Cabinda, a
historical and geo-political observation emphasized by the FNLA (Frente
Nacional de Libertação de Angola) in its pre-independence campaign to
recreate the former ethnic kingdom as an independent state separate from
Angola. (See Marcum 1969). However, most Cabindans do not recognize
themselves as Bakongo, unlike people living in Zaire province who
proudly associate themselves with the Kongo kingdom.

22 Not only fishermen are dependent upon fishing for their livelihoods
in these areas: women market and distribute locally-caught fish for
their livelihood.

23 ChevronTexaco paid about 200 fishermen (those who owned nets in the
water) \$1000 for their damaged nets and 6 months of time they were
unable to fish. Local people say that this was unfairly distributed a
lot more than 200 were affected, and those who were compensated were the
richest they owned their own nets. Day laborers and fish mongering women
fared worse.

major environmental damages incurred by oil corporations. I also
attended the Open Society Foundation on A Common Vision for Cabindafrom
July 8-9, 2003 where I became acquainted with sympathizers to the
separatist cause. I have secured institutional support from numerous
organizations including, but not limited to: Open Society, an
international NGO working to promote transparency and democracy in
Angola; Pesnorte, a governmental organization providing development to
fishing communities in Zaire province; and Grémio ABC, an environmental
NGO working with natural resource dependent people in Cabinda.

I am proficient in Portuguese, advanced to PhD Candidacy (May 2004), and
cleared by UC Berkeleys Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects
to conduct this project. In May 2004, I attended theOil and Gas in
Africaconference sponsored by the Royal Institute for African Affairs in
London where I met with industry leaders, academics, activists and NGO
representatives. During my last three-month round of fieldwork, I
focused on collecting data on how extractive activities and pollution
constrict and change patterns of community-corporate relations. I
conducted semi-structured interviews of local coastal people in Zaire
and Cabinda provinces and compiled their histories of protest,
resistance and cooperation with oil corporations and claims to
corporate-sponsored development. I have also learned about local
patterns of resource access and how corporate compensation measures
interact with customary offshore tenure systems.

**4. Research Schedule**

[Phase I: May September 2004: ]{.underline}The objective of this phase
was to determine suitable sites for case studies on community-corporate
relations, to begin to create timelines on instances of pollution and
violence, and to collect information on the development and pollution
narratives by conducting focus groups and in-depth interviews with
members of these communities. I also gathered background statistics on
production and corporate-sponsored development for six production blocks
from newspaper, journal and online resources as well as interviews with
corporate officials. In addition, I identified research assistants who
speak the local languages of Ibinda and Kisolongo for work in Cabinda
and Zaire, respectively.

[Phase II: October 2004:]{.underline} The objective of this phase is to
gather information on how transnational and state objectives may
influence corporate-sponsored development. I will conduct initial
semi-structured interviews of representatives from NGOs involved in the
transparency movement, corporate directors of development, and state
officials I will also assemble information on the types, values and
forms of corporate-sponsored development implemented in oil-extracting
areas and attempt to gather information on unpublished spills through
Ministry of Fisheries.

[Phase III: November 2004 March 2005: ]{.underline}The objective of this
phase is to collect data on how local histories of violence and
pollution shape corporate-sponsored development. I will return to the
oil-producing provinces working with the aforementioned research
assistance to create an ethnography of pollution and development in
Pangala and Fútila I also plan to travel to the provincial capitals of
Buco Zau, Cabinda and Mbanza-Kongo, Zaire to interview provincial level
officials on the histories of violence and patterns of
corporate-sponsored development within the provinces.

[Phase IV: April June 2006: ]{.underline}The objective of this phase is
to analyze field data and prepare for writing phase. I will fill in gaps
and update material as necessary through continued telephone and email
contact with NGOs. During this time, I will also conduct telephone
interviews with high-level corporate officials from ChevronTexaco and
Exxon-Mobil in the United States, TotalFinaElf in France, BP-Amoco in
the United Kingdom regarding their particular strategies of
corporate-sponsored development in Angola.

[Phase V: July 2005 May 2006: ]{.underline}Following my period of field
research I plan to write a dissertation as intended for publication as a
book, publish related articles and present findings at the 2005 African
Studies Association and the 2006 Association of American Geographers
conferences.

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