Doctoral Dissertation Research: Developing Futures: Oil, Visas, and the Senegalese Nation

摘要本研究基于在塞内加尔达喀尔进行的初步研究，旨在将法律与发展的社会学研究与对时间和未来的人类学探索结合起来，以考察新自由主义政策、话语和法律结构如何影响塞内加尔人对国家未来的概念。该项目特别将法律与科学发展倡议的交集与塞内加尔法律与劳动力迁移的交集进行了比较。自1994年1月以来，塞内加尔采取了一系列改革，使商业法现代化，并保护和促进私营部门的活动。这些监管变化优先考虑了跨国投资以及在科学和金融部门创造就业机会，但也促使新的移民离开塞内加尔到国外寻找工作。这个项目将这两种现象放在同一个民族志框架中，以更好地理解法律和发展的矛盾影响。它着重于两项活动：塞内加尔国家石油公司Petrosen为促进石油勘探方面的多国投资所作的努力（尽管没有发现重大的石油储藏）；塞内加尔为获得外国工作签证所做的努力（尽管实际上很少有申请人的要求得到批准）。本研究采用档案研究、密集访谈和参与者观察来回答三个问题：(1)哪些国家政策和法律推动了塞内加尔的发展，以及这些监管计划如何随着时间的推移而变化？(2)这些法律变化和政策转变对人们认为值得、可行或有希望的地方战略有什么影响？(3)这些变化激发了对未来可能性和不可能性的什么概念？这一建议的学术价值在于它对法律与发展学术以及关于暂时性和变化的人类学研究交叉领域的关键问题进行了调查。许多学者关注的是外国法律结构在第三世界的引入，以及这些法律对家庭生产和结构不平等的影响。人类学家研究了时间的文化结构，分析了人们对未来的概念，以便更好地理解当前的现象。与以往的许多研究不同，本项目着眼于两个看似不可能的发展项目，以便更好地理解全球话语和法律对地方战略和未来的复杂和矛盾的影响。这个项目将有助于重新理论化所谓失败的发展，因为它提出了这样的问题：如果人们继续参与这些战略，这可能会说明当地人对发展和国家未来的理解？这项研究的更广泛的影响包括它对培训Co-PI的重大贡献，以及将其研究结果纳入博士论文。关于非洲发展和未来的重新辩论使这个项目显得尤为及时。这项研究对负责起草有关国际移徙或自然资源开采条例的政策专家，以及在西非和其他地方执行和评价发展政策和做法的国际从业人员都非常有意义。新自由主义的批评者指责从西方引进的发展政策和法律结构忽视或过度简化了第三世界人民面临的复杂挑战。这项研究将为评估未来的政策决定及其对当地人口可能产生的影响提供坚实的经验基础。

AbstractThis proposed research, based on preliminary research conducted in Dakar, Senegal, seeks to merge sociolegal studies of law and development with anthropological explorations of time and the future in order to examine how neoliberal policies, discourses, and legal structures influence Senegalese conceptions of the nations future. In particular, this project compares the intersection of law and science-based development initiatives with the intersection of law and labor migration in Senegal. Since January of 1994, Senegal has adopted a series of reforms to modernize business laws and to protect and promote private sector activities. These regulatory changes have prioritized multinational investment and the creation of jobs in scientific and financial sectors, but have also prompted new flows of migrants out of Senegal in search of work abroad. This project places these two phenomena in the same ethnographic frame to better understand the contradictory effects of law and development. It focuses on two activities: the efforts of Petrosen, Senegals national oil company, to promote multinational investment in petroleum exploration (despite the fact that no significant oil deposits have been found); and Senegalese efforts to obtain foreign employment visas (even as few applicants are actually granted their requests). The research employs archival research, intensive interviewing, and participant observation in order to answer three questions: (1) What state policies and laws animate development in Senegal, and how have these regulatory schemes shifted through time?; (2) What effects do these legal changes and policy shifts have on which local strategies people consider worthwhile, feasible, or promising?; and (3) What conceptions of future possibilities and impossibilities do these changes inspire?. The intellectual merit of this proposal lies in its investigation of key issues at the intersection of law and development scholarship and anthropological studies of temporality and change. Various scholars have focused on the importation of foreign legal structures into Third World contexts and on the impacts these laws have on household production and structural inequality. Anthropologists have examined cultural configurations of time and have analyzed peoples conceptions of the future in order to better understand present phenomena. In contrast to many previous studies, this project focuses on two seemingly improbable development projects in order to better understand the complex and contradictory effects of global discourses and laws on local strategies and futures. This project will help re-theorize developments purported failure, as it asks: If people continue to participate in these strategies, what might this say about local understandings of development and national futures? The broader impacts of the research include its significant contribution to the training of the Co-PI and the incorporation of its findings into a doctoral dissertation. Renewed debates over African development and futures make this project particularly timely. This research would be of great interest to policy experts charged with drafting regulations regarding international migration or natural resource extraction, and to international practitioners who implement and evaluate development policy and practice, both in West Africa and elsewhere. Critics of neoliberalism have charged that development policies and legal structures imported from the West have ignored or oversimplified the complex challenges facing Third World peoples. This research will provide a solid empirical basis on which to assess future policy decisions and their likely effects on local populations.