Electrifying the green peace? Electrification, conservation and conflict in Eastern Congo

Bibliographic Data

ID5680822
AuthorsEsther Marijnen (0000-0002-2960-7151, Conflict Research Group, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium), Peer Schouten (0000-0001-7453-6463, Danish Institute for International Studies (Peace, Risk and Violence Unit), Copenhagen, Denmark and International Peace Information Service, Antwerp, Belgium, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume19
Issue1
Pages15-34
Publication date2019-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueConflict Security and Development (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1467-8802 • E-ISSN: 1478-1174
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14678802.2019.1561615
OpenAlexW2914822670
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited35

Large-scale infrastructure in conflict-affected states is often seen as a crucial means to pursue economic growth, poverty reduction, and increasingly, peace-building. Legitimated by an emergent ‘Business for Peace’ agenda, a variety of private actors now also engages in such infrastructure projects. The Virunga Alliance is such an initiative which aims to tackle the interlinked problems of poverty, conservation and conflict in the east of DR Congo through commercialised hydro-power. To take stock of the politics unfolding around such infrastructure efforts, this article analyses the Virunga Alliance as a form of ‘technopolitics’. This entails tracing how current is generated, distributed and consumed, and how these processes generate new sites of power and control. In describing how Virunga offers a centralised, more concentrated supply of electricity as an alternative to the decentralised charcoal circuit, we show how electrification contributes to the expansion of a form of capitalism that prioritises big businessmen over small farmers, facilitates rent-seeking by political elites and amplifies social inequalities in Congo

Alliance · Capitalism · Development economics · Economics · Electricity · Electrification · Inequality · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Sociology · Engineering · Hydropower, Displacement, Environmental Impact · International Development and Aid · Law · Water Governance and Infrastructure