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

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5680822
AutoresEsther 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, autor de correspondencia)
Año2019
Volumen19
Número1
Páginas15-34
Fecha de publicación2019-01-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaConflict Security and Development (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1467-8802 • E-ISSN: 1478-1174
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14678802.2019.1561615
OpenAlexW2914822670
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas13
Referencias citadas35

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