Navigating plural legal constellations at the coal mining frontier in Mozambique

Abstract

In this article, I will focus on the emergence and dynamics of different laws, standards, and norms in the context of an extractive frontier. The extractive frontier is presented as a place where multiple jurisdictions overlap and in which new governance constellations and practices emerge. This article focuses on the laws and standards related to resettlement processes and compensation for loss of residence, land, and livelihood in the surroundings of two coal mines in Tete province, Mozambique. Resettlement processes are one of the most direct ways in which populations are affected by extractive projects and often associated with human rights violations. The paper focuses on resettlement officers of the mining companies who are at the forefront of planning and implementing such processes. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews with resettlement officers and participation in their daily lives, the article details how these individuals position themselves in relation to multiple sets of laws and rules (e.g. Standards of the International Finance Corporation, state mining law and resettlement regulation, land law, human rights law) and a variety of actors (e.g. mining companies, international finance institutes, government agencies, local populations, NGOs). Resettlement officers often work with standards that surpass national law but are in their implementation of regulations also curtailed by a seemingly absent state, divergent company policies, critical civil society organisations, and global commodity markets. A focus on the everyday intricacies of the work of resettlement officers, shows their power and constraints, and the dynamics by which hierarchies of rules and laws become unsettled at the extractive frontier.