Paper short abstract:

In this paper I question the extent to which a moral paradigm is based on conceptions of ‘best practice’ and normative ethics that emerge from (and are influenced by) processes of imperial entitlement and postcolonial guilt framed within a capitalist system of immediate cash exchange.

Paper long abstract:

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development narratives are now largely embedded in the practices of extractive industry companies. A key factor in the operationalisation of CSR is so-called 'social development' where community projects are envisaged to activate 'self-development' at the local level, whilst transparency and reporting initiatives advocate the trickling down of profits at state level. This fulfils multiple moralities for extractive industries, justifying their presence in low-income, resource-rich countries on the one hand and their appropriation of resources on the other. But the characteristics motivating corporate agency have specific historical narratives that differ from the characteristics provoking agency (response) in areas affected by industrial extraction. As such, the way local, indigenous populations accommodate and interpret the discourse and action emerging from the enactment of contemporary moral paradigms has unpredicted outcomes ranging from social disintegration, stratification and subsequent inequities, economic inflation and transformation, intergenerational and intrafamilial conflict, rent seeking behaviour, and exogenous and endogenous violent and non-violent conflict. In this paper I question the extent to which this moral paradigm is based on conceptions of 'best practice' and normative ethics that emerge from (and are influenced by) processes of imperial entitlement and postcolonial guilt framed within a capitalist system of immediate cash exchange. Drawing on case study data from the Kutubu oil/gas project and Ok Tedi copper mine in PNG and the Kafubu emerald mine in Zambia I discuss the relationship between the moral paradigm of CSR and sustainability and the various outcomes of 'negative development' it can incite.