Doctoral Dissertation Research: Washing Ashore: Offshore Oil Production and Corporate-Sponsored Development in Angola

安哥拉出现了一种复杂和矛盾的新发展形式：企业赞助的发展。学者和活动人士对该国的“石油资本主义”悖论感到遗憾，即每天超过100万桶的产量产生了意外收入，而该国的人类发展指标是世界上最低的。安哥拉长达三十年的内战结束两年后，政府非但没有增加，反而减少了社会支出，并继续逃避考虑多边资助所必需的透明度标准。与此同时，在安哥拉经营的跨国石油公司正在修建学校，提供艾滋病教育，资助小企业发展，分发农业种子和农具。本研究项目将研究企业赞助发展的结构和特点以及跨国企业责任压力的不断变化的影响，安哥拉政府要求企业为重建这个饱受战争蹂躏的国家作出贡献，以及居住在开采地点内或附近的社区提出的要求。安哥拉政府文件和公司报告中跟踪石油产量和利润与投资的定量数据集将阐明这些对发展贡献的结构和特征。以不同产油省份的两个社区的企业赞助发展为中心的补充性人种学案例研究将揭示暴力、污染和政治镇压的不同历史对企业倡议的影响。社区成员的叙述将探讨公司赞助的发展模式中可能存在的内在矛盾，在这种模式中，扮演捐助者角色的同一公司可能在石油泄漏或天然气泄漏时威胁人类健康或以资源为基础的生计。本研究将展示社区如何回应企业关于责任的说辞，并对企业的发展提出相应的要求。鉴于新自由主义改革背景下国家发展预算的缩减，本研究将及时洞察企业在国际发展中不断变化的角色。美国对国际援助进行了重组，通过千年挑战账户（millennium Challenge Account）将大部分发展资金转向治理良好的国家，并通过美国国际开发署的全球发展联盟（Global development Alliance）建立了公私伙伴关系，这些都使企业在安哥拉等被排除在千年发展计划之外的国家的发展中发挥了核心作用。通过调查资源依赖型社区、石油国家和跨国采掘公司之间的复杂关系，该项目将深入了解企业赞助的新发展模式的动态，并探索当地人利用企业利益为自己谋利的方式。

A complex and contradictory new form of development has emerged in Angola: corporate-sponsored development. Scholars and activists have lamented the country's 'petro-capitalist' paradox of windfall revenues generated by a production rate of over one million barrels per day where human development indicators are among the lowest in the world. Two years after the end of a three-decade civil war in Angola, the government is decreasing rather than increasing social spending and continuing to shirk transparency standards requisite to consideration for multilateral funding. At the same time, transnational oil corporations operating in Angola are building schools, providing AIDS education, funding small business development, and distributing agricultural seeds and tools. This research project will examine the structure and character of corporate-sponsored development and the changing influence of transnational pressures for corporate responsibility, Angolan government demands for corporate contributions to rebuild the war-torn country, and requests generated from communities living within or near the site of extraction. Quantitative data sets from Angolan government documents and corporate reports tracking oil production and profits against investments will elucidate the structure and character of these contributions to development. Complementary ethnographic case studies centering on corporate-sponsored development in two communities in different oil-producing provinces will reveal the influence of disparate histories of violence, pollution and political repression on corporate initiatives. Narratives of community members will explore the possible contradictions inherent in the corporate-sponsored development model wherein the same corporations playing the role of benefactor may threaten human health or resource-based livelihoods in the time of an oil spill or gas leak. This study will demonstrate how communities respond to the corporate rhetoric on responsibility and make corresponding claims on corporations for development. Given shrinking state development budgets in the context of neoliberal reforms, this study will provide timely insights into the changing role of corporations in international development. The restructuring of international assistance in the United States to redirect the lion's share of development funds to countries with good governance through the Milennium Challenge Account and the creation of public-private partnerships through USAID's Global Development Alliance offers corporations a central role in development in countries excluded from MCA funding like Angola. By investigating the complex relations between resource-dependent communities, petro-states and transnational extractive corporations, this project will provide insight into the dynamics of the new corporate-sponsored development model and explore the ways local people might leverage corporate interests to their benefit.