Midterm report for SPP 1448 subproject
‘Oil and social change in Niger and Chad’
March 2011 – Mai 2012
Collective field research in Chad from 2 – 14 October 2011 (ECRIS)
1. Project title:
Significations of Oil in Niger and Chad.
An Anthropological Cooperative Research Project on Technologies, Signification and Processes of Creative Adaption in Relation to African Oil Production
2. Location:
University of Halle-Wittenberg
University of Göttingen
University of Mainz
3. Cooperating Countries
Germany
Niger
Chad
4. Project Members
Dr. Andrea Behrends
Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Schareika
Prof. Dr. Thomas Bierschenk
Prof. Dr. Mahaman Tijani Alou
Prof. Dr. Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan
Dr. Hadiza Moussa
Remadji Hoinathy
Jannik Schritt
Oubandoma Salissou (Master’s Student)
Saadi Amar (Master’s Student)
Aboubakar Attahirou (Master’s Student)
5. Summary of research problem for the first project phase (04-2011 to 03-2013)
The first project phase addressed the increasingly important role of crude oil as a prime source of far-reaching societal and cultural transformation in Africa: Due to the diminishing availability of crude worldwide, hitherto untapped reserves are now exploited by the world’s most influential oil companies. Using this moment of upheaval as a methodological chance, the project follows the PP’s theoretical outlook in order to develop a distinctly anthropological and ethnographic perspective on the early formation phase of new oil states in Africa (Behrends & Schareika 2010, 2011). Oil-induced change is studied as in the making, at the level of concrete processes of social and political interaction that occur in manifold forms in various places and institutional environments, but that are clearly structured by the presence of oil. The project starts with the well-established knowledge provided by political economy studies of oil and uses it for conceptual guidance; but it then seeks to supplement this knowledge by focussing on practice as framed by particular institutions and significations and leading to contingent, locally specific outcomes.
We define five fields of order thus generated by practice, namely 1) central governance and finance, 2) local governance, 3) resistance, 4) emerging oil zone communities, and 5) rural people’s responses to activities within the oil zone. The dynamics in these spheres of socio-political practice in the new African oil states are subsumed within a comprehensive framework and analytically prepared for comparison between Chad and Niger. In order to bring together theoretical, methodological and regional expertise from various sources, to intensify the cooperation between and among African studies centres in Germany and West Africa and to contribute to capacity building, the project is jointly executed by a German/Chadian/Nigerien research cooperative.
Internal Cooperation
Responding to the structural aims of the Priority Programme, the project has brought together researchers from several German Africa-oriented research institutions, notably the Seminar für Ethnologie, Halle/Saale (A. Behrends), the Institut für Ethnologie, Göttingen (N. Schareika) and the Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien, Mainz (Th. Bierschenk). All three research institutions combine a marked interest in general anthropological and sociological theory with a distinctly empirical preoccupation with processes of transformation in modern Africa. The Germen research institutions are joined by two important cooperating research centres in Africa: the Laboratoire d’Études et de Recherche sur les Dynamiques Sociales et le Développement Locale (LASDEL) in Niamey, Niger (M. Tijani Alou and J.P. Olivier de Sardan) and the Centre de Recherche en Anthropologie et Sciences Humaines (CRASH) in N’Djamena, Chad (R. Hoinathy).
Methods
The project started with the idea of using ethnographic methods of participant observation, situational analysis and extended case study in order to develop a processual view on technologies of governing and the manifold transformations that are characteristic of African oil states. Two newcomers to the world of oil, namely Niger and Chad, were selected in order to elucidate the decisive early moments in the reordering of social and political arrangements in an African oil state. Building upon already existing expertise on both African oil and the countries of Niger and Chad, five work packages were defined to cover the nodal points of oil production in Africa. The project’s five work packages correspond to the five fields of research mentioned above. They serve a heuristic purpose and have possibly to be rearranged according to realities encountered in the field. Upon completion of the project, the work packages will not be kept in their rigid form. In the first place they helped to clearly define loci of empirical research and organize issues to be studied. In the second place they serve as a basis for comparing oil-induced processes of change in the two countries Niger and Chad.
6. Empirical work
The entire research team carried out two weeks of refining basic research concepts and collective field research in Chad from 2 – 14 October 2011. The collective study was multi-sited and research was conducted in N’Djamena (the capital), Douguia and Djermaya (near the oil refinery) and Bongor (a newly developing oil region). Based on the ‘Rapid Collective Inquiry for the Identification of Conflicts and Strategic Groups’ (ECRIS) a framework of questions was developed by the team and the research carried out collectively. This procedure allowed the research team to quickly establish a common point of departure and to sketch in broad approximation the empirical contours of oil age society in Niger and Chad (it was e.g. possible to determine relevant strategic groups and prevailing discourses on oil). The data was analysed also collectively by the whole project team and put in perspective according to the research-guiding work packages.
Jannik Schritt (PhD candidate, Göttingen) carried out nine months of field research in Niger, both in the oil state’s metropolis (Niamey) and in emerging oil cities (Zinder and Diffa) and communities (Bakin Birgi). In Niamey he conducted three months of field research in March, May, June and October 2011. This research was based on problem-centred interviews with representatives in state ministries and administrative bodies, in media stations and civil society associations. Jannik Schritt thus combined research on work package one “central governance and finance” with research on work package four “local governance” and work package three “emerging oil zone communities” that he carried out mainly in Zinder (where the Nigerien oil refinery has been newly opened) and partly in Diffa. He conducted six months of field research in Zinder (April 2011 and November – March 2012) and one week in Diffa (May 2011). His research on work package four “local governance” was based on problem-centred and biographic narrative interviews with local politicians, businessmen, civil society groups, media representatives and youth gangs. Jannik Schritt combined the classic ethnographic methods of participant observation and interviewing with the data collection method of participant audition in a local committee of civil society associations that worked on the topic of oil. The research on work package three “emerging oil zone communities” was conducted in the city of Zinder, in villages neighbouring to the oil refinery (Bakin Birgi) and in the city of Diffa. The data collection was based on narrative interviews about work experiences with oil workers and security agents and on daily experiences with villagers living close to the oil refinery.
Remadji Hoinathy (PhD candidate, project partner in Chad) carried out four months of fieldwork research in Chad in 2011 and 2012 on work package three “emerging oil zone communities”. His research started in the villages around the first oil extraction site in Chad (Canton Béro), where the American based multi-national ExxonMobil’s influence is most evident. After completion of his PhD thesis in February 2012 he now continues to do research in the newly developed oil extraction site of Bongor – specifically among oil workers and in spontaneous settlements around the Chinese oil developments in Koudaloua, Chad (thus contributing to work package three “emerging oil zone communities”). Remadji Hoinathy was also instrumental in co-organising the group’s workshop in N’Djamena, Douguia and Djermaya and preparing the group’s collective research in Bongor.
Oubandoma Salissou (Master’s student, Niger) carried out one week of preliminary field research in November 2011 in the villages of Bakin Birgi and Olelewa in the vicinity of the oil refinery. His research contributes to findings on work package three “emerging oil zone communities”. He participated as VIP among high ranking Nigerien politicians, foreign state representatives and Chinese company representatives in the festive celebration of the oil refinery’s inauguration ceremony on 28th November 2011.[1] He observed the “festivilisation” of Niger becoming an oil producing country. His findings contributed to work package one “modes of central governance and finance”. Salissou Oubandoma reviewed literature in preparation for his master’s thesis and prepared for further field research. Due to delays in the transfer of research funds, further empirical research is only starting now.
Sa-âdi Amar (Master’s student, Niger) carried out two months of preliminary field research in N’gourti, Niger’s oil extracting region, on work package five “transformation of rural livelihoods and traditional chieftaincy in regions with oil extraction”. In his research he focused on traditional chiefs of ethnic Tubu and Arab who predominantly inhabit the region. He conducted participant observation and problem-centred interviewing with royal families and analyzed transformations in inter-ethnic relations between Tubu, Arab (and Fula people) as a result of administrative changes and high expectations to participate in the windfall gains of oil.
Mahamidou Aboubacar Attahirou carried out 40 days of field research between 26 February and 7 April 2012 in N’gourti, Diffa region. Corresponding to Sa-âdi Amar’s research, Mahamidou Aboubacar Attahirou conducted research on work package five “transformation of rural livelihoods and traditional chieftaincy in regions with oil extraction” in the administrative department of N’gourti. He analysed the transformation of rural livelihoods in regard to the social (education, health and water supply) and the economic sector (trade, livestock farming and employment) using interviewing, focus group discussions and participant observation as his main methods. Mahamidou Aboubacar Attahirou reviewed the existing literature in preparation for his master thesis.
Andrea Behrends (Principal Investigator and research group coordinator, Halle University) co-taught seminars on oil in Mainz (with Thomas Bierschenk) and Göttingen (with Nikolaus Schareika) and was main organiser of the inaugural meeting in Chad with the help of Remadji Hoinathy. After that meeting, she proceeded to her research site in Eastern Chad to continue her previous work on oil-related resistance movements, work package 2 “resistance”, and the ‘wider’ effects of oil and significations of oil in a region that is far remote from the actual extraction sites, but central for resistance activities (Behrends 2011). In her findings, development and local governance turned out to be key aspects of her research, which thus also contributes to work package 4 “modes of local governance, local politics and regional development”. In July 2011, she invited two key informants from Eastern Chad to Halle and Berlin for an intensive two-week workshop/ research meeting on ‘social change in eastern Chad’. She supervises Remadji Hoinathy’s PhD thesis.
Nikolaus Schareika (Principal Investigator, Göttingen University) taught two Master’s level seminars on oil (one with A. Behrends). He spent one month in south-western Chad in order to start empirical research on the social impact of oil production in the Koudalwa area where boreholes are owned and operated by the Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC). Research focused on the impact of oil production and oil rents upon rural populations including pastoralists and the relationship of local merchants with the sites of oil production. His work corresponds to work package five on the “transformation of rural livelihoods and traditional chieftaincy in regions with oil extraction”. His research made it particularly evident that this work package will, in the future, include actors that do not directly “belong” to the oil community, but act in its wider field of service provision. It also calls into question the immediate applicability of the enclave concept that has come to be widely accepted as suitable for analysing global oil.
Mahaman Tijani Alou (Senior Project Partner, Niamey University and LASDEL) is dean of legal studies at the University of Niamey and advisor to the Nigerien president. His previous research on Nigerien political institutions and his insights into governmental policies particularly enriched the inaugural project meeting. As his research contribution to the project he proceeds to collect legislative texts and policy documents relating to the governmental and financial sector in Niamey, going back to 2008, which covers the significant planning phase of the oil project in Niger (including far-reaching changes in the arena of national politics, finance and governance). He also follows press debates on the fuel price fix in Niger, related to the opening of the Chinese-run refinery in Zinder. His work contributes to work package 1 “modes of central governance and finance”. A group research with M. Tijani Alou and the research coordinator of LASDEL, Dr. Hadiza Moussa, plus the three Master’s students is scheduled for August 2012.
Thomas Bierschenk (Principal Investigator, Mainz University) has taught two classes on the anthropology of oil at Mainz University. After his participation at the research group’s inaugural workshop in Chad, he conducted a short-term research on a meeting of government agents, oil company representatives and potential investors in N’Djamena, Chad (in October 2011). Based on his previous studies on the African state, he continues to reflect about the local effects of rent-economies, in particular those based on oil, and the mystification of oil or oil’s magic.
Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan (EHESS Marseille and LASDEL), based on his extensive previous research on local government practices in Niger, focuses his research on the effects of oil rents on authoritarian states, particularly on their modes of governance and the continuous modification of what he calls ‘practical norms’, that is the incorporation of oil revenues into existing governmental practices (Olivier de Sardan 2011). His findings correspond to work package four “modes of local governance, local politics and regional development”.
7. First results
Our preliminary results show that oil not only induces substantial transformations in the socio-political arenas of new African oil states, but completely restructures them. Some preliminary results pertain to the following:
· Rural communities experienced massive spatial and social re-ordering influenced by the disappropriation and restructuring of land in relation to the direct material oil-related technologies around the construction of oil wells, pipelines, roads, power stations, refineries etc. Likewise, social and political institutions of rural communities significantly changed following the influx of money due to temporary and selectively paid compensations (for land loss) and short term employment. The changes can be summarised under the headlines ‘monetisation of social relations’, ‘de-agriculturation’ and the creative development of strategies to ‘participate in the oil rent’ (Hoinathy 2012).