Ethnography of Land Deals Local Perceptions of a Bioenergy Project in Sierra Leone –Expectations of Modernity, Gendered Impacts and Coping Strategies– Master Thesis of Franziska Marfurt Master of Arts in Social Anthropology Institute of Social Anthropology University of Bern Supervisor [email protected] Prof. Dr. Tobias Haller 07-209-331 Submitted 21.01.2016 To Franziska Conteh and the People of Worreh Yeama Abstract In the last decade with have witnessed a rise in large-scale land acquisition projects on a global scale. Despite increased research activity, data on concrete implementation processes and perceptions of different groups of affected people remain sparse. This thesis aims to address this research gap by providing empirical in-depth knowledge on the investment case of the Swiss-based company Addax Bioenergy in Sierra Leone. The four-month fieldwork addressed questions of consultation, perceptions, impacts on livelihoods and coping strategies. Findings reveal gendered impacts on access to land and resources and adverse effects on livelihood strategies of women who have been marginalised through the formalisation of customary land rights. However, evidence shows that women and other groups of affected people are capable of organizing within a complex institutional setting. Through alliances with various actors they manage to influence the outcomes of the Bioenergy project through acts of resistance and therewith prevent further deterioration of resilience of livelihoods. Key Words: Large scale land acquisition, local impacts, land rights, gender, development, resistance. i Acknowledgments The writing of this thesis would not have been possible without all the people who have supported me during my fieldwork and the process of writing. I thank all the people in the community of Worreh Yeama for sharing their knowledge and experiences with me and for welcoming me so warmly among them. I am particularly grateful to Zainab Kamara and her family for providing me a home far away from home, and to Mohamed Conteh for spending countless hours explaining, translating and assisting me in every way possible. Further thanks go to Mama Fornah, Mohamed Kargbo, Sheriff Kamara, and Dauda Koroma for introducing me to the art of rice harvesting and processing, and for being such a joyful company. I also thank my advisor Prof. Dr. Haller for his availability and his advice in the course of this master thesis. Many thanks go to my research fellows Fabian Käser and Samuel Lustenberger for the fruitful collaboration and the friendship that has evolved out of it. I also thank Elisabeth Schubiger, Anna von Sury, Romy Scheidegger and Leonie Pock for exchanging views and discussing live experiences. Further I thank Yvan Maillard from Bread for All and Abbas Kamara, Lansana Sowa, John Brima, John Tarawalie and Joseph Saffa from SiLNoRF for providing me with information and documents and for facilitating my access to the research area. I thank Piotr Bariatin and Danielle Furgler for taking time and revising my thesis and Patrick Schibler for helping me with graphics. Last but definitely not least I would like to thank my family and friends, particularly Martina Zahno, Ruth Leupi, Rahel Wüst, Céline Gex, Severin Schindler, Vladimir Milosevic, Mirjam Stutz, Renate Bucher and Cornelia Britt. Special thanks go to Attilio Bernasconi for encouraging and inspiring me. ii iii Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION 4 2.THEORY 6 2. 1. NAMING AND FRAMING THE PHENOMENON 6 2.1.1. PRELIMINARY DEFINITION OF LSLA 6 2.1.2. DRIVING FORCES 7 2.2. THE DEVELOPMENT DISCOURSE 12 2.3. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LSLA 17 2.3.1. THE LABOUR QUESTION 17 2.3.2. NEW INSTITUTIONALISM THEORY 18 2.4. GENDERED LAND RIGHTS AND THE POLITICS OF BELONGING 22 2.4.1. WHAT IS CUSTOMARY LAW? 22 2.4.2. PRIVATIZATION OF LAND AND ITS EFFECTS 25 2.5. ABOUT HOPES AND STRATEGIES FROM BELOW 27 2.6. KNOWLEDGE GAP 31 3. RESEARCH PROJECT 32 3.1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND PRELIMINARY HYPOTHESES 33 3.2. MIXING METHODS AND EVALUATING DATA 34 3.3. REFLECTIONS ON FIELDWORK 39 4. SIERRA LEONE: RESEARCH CONTEXT 41 4.1. DEVELOPMENT OF (POST-)COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION AND CUSTOMARY LAND TENURE 42 4.2. ADDAX BIOENERGY SIERRA LEONE 49 4.2.1. THE FORMATION OF THE COMPANY 49 4.2.2. THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS 51 5. THE LOCAL SETTING 56 5.1. THE COMMUNITY OF WORREH YEAMA 56 5.2. THE MORAL ECONOMY 60 5.2.1. SOCIO-POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 63 5.2.2. SOCIO-RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS 66 5.2.3. THE PRODUCTION OF LOCALITY AND LOYALTY 69 5.3. POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF LAND USE 71 5.3.1.LAND TYPES 71 5.3.2. LAND AND ACCESS RIGHTS 73 5.3.3. GENDERED SPACES 77 5.4. THE HISTORY OF WORREH YEAMA 79 1 6. THE IMPACTS OF THE BIOENERGY PROJECT 81 6.1. THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS 82 6.1.1. PROMISES AND EXPECTATIONS 82 6.1.2. FREE, PRIOR AND INFORMED CONSENT? 84 6.1.3. PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN AND LANDUSERS 85 6.1.4. THE PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE 87 6.2. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WATER SOURCE AND THE SWAMPLAND 89 6.2.1. INADEQUATE MITIGATION OF THE WATER SOURCE 91 6.2.2. IMPACTS ON LIVELIHOOD STRATEGIES 92 6.3. COMPENSATION SCHEMES 94 6.3.1. LAND LEASE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT PAYMENT 94 6.3.2. CROPS COMPENSATION 96 6.4. THE FARMER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM 97 6.4.1. THE DESIGN OF THE FARMER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMM 97 6.4.2. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FDP IN WORREH YEAMA 99 6.4.3. DIGRESSION FOOD SECURITY 102 6.5. EMPLOYMENT 103 6.5.1. CONTRACTS, SALARIES AND WORKING CONDITIONS 103 6.5.2. ACCESS TO EMPLOYMENT 105 6.5.3. PERCEPTIONS OF EMPLOYMENT 106 6.6. RESISTANCE AND THE AFTERMATH 107 6.6.1. THE BOLILAND INCIDENT 108 6.6.2. NEGATIVE LABELLING 110 6.6.3. ABOUT AMBIVALENCES 111 7. DISCUSSION 113 8. CONCLUSION 124 8. BIBLIOGRAPHY 126 2 List of Abbreviations AA Acknowledgment Agreement ABSL Addax Bioenergy Sierra Leone Ltd. AfDB African Development Bank AFLUA Affected Land User’s Association AOG Addax and Oryx Group APC All People’s Congress BfA Bread for All CDE Centre for Development and Environment ESHIA Environmental Social and Health Impact Assessment EC European Commission FDP Farmer Development Program FDS Farmer Development Services LLA Land Lease Agreement LOC Land Owners Committee LSLA Large-Scale Land Acquisition MoA Memorandum of Agreement MoU Memorandum of Understanding NASSIT National Social Security and Insurance Trust RSB Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials RUF Revolutionary United Front SiLNoRF Sierra Leonean Network on the Right to Food SLIEPA Sierra Leone Investment and Export Promotion Agency SLPP Sierra Leone People’s Party UNCTAD United Nations Organisation Conference on Trade and Development UNDP United Nations Development Program UNO United Nations Organisation 3 1. Introduction Since the beginning of the new millennium we can witness a global increase in so called large-scale land acquisition (LSLA) projects. The phenomenon has become an intensely debated topic among scholars of social sciences and economy alike. While some are underlining the importance of so-called Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) projects in the struggle against poverty and underdevelopment in the global south (Byerlee 2011), others perceive such investments as land grabbing, exploiting the poorest of the poor and threatening their livelihoods (De Schutter 2011, Bread for All 2011). The rise in LSLA has led to a considerable growth of research activity and publications (Oya 2013). In chapter 1, I will discuss theoretical perspectives that move beyond the works of the initial phase of research on LSLA and address issues such as ownership and control of resources, gender, labour, power and resistance to give an overview of the state of the art. This outline will also identify research gaps on two different levels. First, we still lack data on concrete implementation processes of LSLA projects on the local level, (changing) perceptions of the heterogeneous group of affected people as well as coping strategies people develop to deal with the transformed situation. Second, we lack vertical knowledge about the formation of investing companies, business models, ideologies and discourses, which are used for the projects’ legitimation. In order to address these research gaps, the Institute of Social Anthropology and the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) of the University of Bern have set up the interdisciplinary research project Ethnography of Land Deals. The project researches three different cases of LSLA on two different levels: A student of human geography conducted his research on the so-called vertical level, which concentrates on the investor. The guiding research questions here are the following: For which reasons did the company decide for a particular product and the specific country for its operations? How did the deal pass through several levels of state, provincial and district levels, and who was acting as broker, translator or facilitator of the process? Which ideologies and discourses were used to legitimate the deal on different levels? The anthropologists in the project conducted a research on the so-called horizontal level of the land deal, which is informed by the following research questions: How was access to land structured before the implementation of the deal? How was a land deal proposed to affected people, and what were the possibilities of participation? What are the emic perceptions and the emic narratives of the heterogeneous group of affected people (in 4 terms of age, gender, class, social status, etc.)? Did the perceptions change in the course of the implementation process? How do people frame their life experience, and how does the land deal fit into their concerns and expectations of development? What kind of strategies do affected people develop in order to cope with the transformed situation? My thesis is based on a four month fieldwork in the operational area of the Swiss–based company Addax Bionergy Ltd.