The politics of impact assessment in framing community 'development' in extractive projects

Research summary

Impact assessments used by large-scale development projects are often portrayed as neutral tools providing objective and value-free information to decision-makers. However, scholars widely agree that impact assessments are inherently biased, political, and distorted by power dynamics. Using a forthcoming natural gas project in Mozambique as case study, my ethnographic field research provides important baseline study of the social, relational, and place-bound aspects of wellbeing, often overlooked in impact assessment processes.

Description

Research info

Research title
The politics of impact assessment in framing community 'development' in extractive projects

Research timeline
1.10.2014 - 1.10.2017

Keywords
african philosophy environmental justice ethnography extractive industries gas impact assessment mining oil ubuntu Well-Being Wellbeing

Region
Africa

Countries
Finland, Mozambique

Institution
University of East Anglia
School of International Development
Norwich, United Kingdom

Head of research
Marianne Kuusipalo

Contact information
Marianne Kuusipalo
+44 7 507 4141 76
m.kuusipalo@uea.ac.uk

Record last updated
5.11.2018