Same Same, but Different: Ghana’s Sinohydro Deal as Evolved ‘Angola Model’?

Purwins, Sebastian

doi:10.1177/09750878221114381

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 38 publications

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“…It is important to highlight that, out of these high-level negotiations, the agreement to build infrastructure in exchange for refined bauxite is between the government of Ghana and the Chinese company Sinohydro. Purwins (2023) points out that this case is another example for China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) increasingly investing their own capital to build and operate infrastructure projects.…”

Section: Atewa Forest Reserve As Political Forestmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politicisation of the Atewa Forest Reserve in Ghana

Purwins

2024

Journal of Tropical Futures: Sustainable Business, Governance &

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In 2018, the Ghanaian government signed the Sinohydro deal, a resource-backed loan using bauxite as collateral, with Ghana's president highlighting the opportunity to develop an integrated bauxite-aluminium industry and boost industrialisation across the country. The deal has led to a number of protests against bauxite mining in Ghana, particularly at one potential site: The Atewa Forest Reserve. This paper analyses the politicisation of the Atewa Forest Reserve through the lens of political ecology. Political ecology recognises that forests are not neutral entities, but are shaped by political processes and dynamics. The Atewa Forest is seen as a political forest, as a particular constellation of power constituted by ideas, practices and institutions. The paper contends that the narrative constructed around the Sinohydro Deal strategically legitimizes mining in the Atewa Forest, positioning the project as a symbol of progress and national development. It also argues that the Sinohydro deal was designed to circumvent national environmental laws, leading to quick (political) success while being embedded in a powerful narrative. Therefore, the contestation over development is increasingly shaped by a discursive closure that limits dissent, influencing public opinion and decision-making. Despite presenting the developments as visions for the future, the narrative ultimately reinforces old development tropes of resource extraction, convincing even counter-movements to focus on the location rather than opposing bauxite mining as a whole. The findings are based on interviews conducted during fieldwork in 2018, 2019 and 2020, as well as analysis of secondary data such as political documents, press statements and speeches.

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Section: Atewa Forest Reserve As Political Forestmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politicisation of the Atewa Forest Reserve in Ghana

Purwins

2024

Journal of Tropical Futures: Sustainable Business, Governance &

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Reframing urban development politics: Transcalarity in sovereign, developmental and private circuits

Robinson,

Harrison,

Croese

et al. 2024

Urban Studies

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This paper develops the idea of transcalarity to reframe analyses of urban development politics. Our analysis starts from African contexts but is relevant to, and in conversation with, experiences on other continents. Accounts of the politics of urban development have rarely benefitted from the experiences of African urban settings. Characterised by relatively weakly resourced municipalities, informality of the urban setting and of the state, and highly transnationalised forms of governance, African experiences may seem to stand out as profoundly different from those which have informed dominant theorisations of urban development politics. And yet, it is across the African continent that a substantial portion of the world’s new, future urban areas are being made, providing strong grounds for theorising urban development politics starting from the diversity of experiences across the continent. Evidence from current research and long-term observations in three African urban contexts (Lilongwe, Accra and Dar es Salaam) indicate that inherited conceptualisations vastly overestimate the resources and agency of municipal government in many urban contexts and omit the enhanced institutional interests of national actors in urban development. Also, the range of international actors considered has been analytically restricted or mischaracterised, as global sovereign and developmental actors play a powerful role while significant private sector interests may not be very international. More generally, ‘circulating’ processes and actors might not be ‘external’ as, especially in relation to developmental and sovereign circuits, these are often embedded in and contribute to shaping emergent transcalar territorial networks co-ordinating investment in different contexts.

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Calculated Capital: The Business Logic Behind Chinese Lending in the Global South

Landry,

Tang

2024

SSRN Journal

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Same Same, but Different: Ghana’s Sinohydro Deal as Evolved ‘Angola Model’?

Cited by 3 publications

References 38 publications

The Politicisation of the Atewa Forest Reserve in Ghana

The Politicisation of the Atewa Forest Reserve in Ghana

Reframing urban development politics: Transcalarity in sovereign, developmental and private circuits

Calculated Capital: The Business Logic Behind Chinese Lending in the Global South

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