Elusive Partnerships: Gas extraction and CSR in Bangladesh
Introduction
This article examines a programme of ‘Community Engagement’ undertaken by the multinational corporation Chevron at a gas field in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Our aim is to examine the ideologies and practices of the programme, digging beneath the corporation's claims of partnership with the ‘community’ and suggesting that, paradoxically, ‘community engagement’ allows Chevron to remain detached from the area and its inhabitants, creating instead a particular set of practices and relationships which we term ‘disconnect development’. The paper is based on anthropological fieldwork in the area from 2008–10, carried out by a small research team co-ordinated by the universities of Sussex and Jahnagirnagar.1 Our methods were largely qualitative, involving interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation, but also included household and community surveys, and drew upon Katy Gardner's long term research in the area, which dates back to the late 1980s.2
As far as we are aware, Chevron's programme of community engagement is the first CSR programme to take place amongst communities surrounding a mining or gas extraction site in Bangladesh. As such it should be examined carefully, not so much for lessons it might impart about ‘how to do CSR’, but more, for the role of such programmes in changing or reproducing hierarchy and inequality, promoting or suppressing rights and providing pathways out of, or contributing to, poverty. Whilst the focus of the paper is upon one case study, our broader objective is thus to contribute to the broader literature on whether or not CSR is ‘good for development’ (Rajak, 2011, Jenkins, 2005, Gardner, 2012).
Within Bangladesh, the wider context is one in which energy shortages are a major hindrance to the country's economic growth. A 2010 report by the Asian Development Bank states, for example, ‘acute power and energy shortages have reduced Bangladesh's short term growth prospects’3. Meanwhile, the extraction of the country's energy resources by multinationals, in particular gas and coal, has become one of the most explosive issues on the political agenda. Whereas people once rioted over food, increasingly civil disturbance in Bangladesh is caused by the issue of energy, whether involving protests against power shedding (when the power supply is turned off by the electricity board, often for many hours, in order to save energy)4, or over the presence in the country of extractive multinationals which, protesters argue, are plundering the country's resources. The role of extractive multinationals has caused serious political unrest in the country in the last decade. In 2006 protests against a proposed open cast mine in Phulbari, in the North East, to be operated by Asia Energy, which, it was said, would leave over 20,000 displaced people, led to the death of three and injury of around a hundred when police shot into the crowd. More recently national agitation has centred around the content of Power Share Contracts with foreign companies, with the activists arguing that these exploit the country's natural resources, leading to large profits for the multinationals, generous backhanders for corrupt government officials and nothing for Bangladesh. In September 2009, for example, a rally called to protest against the leasing of rights to extract offshore gas resources to multinationals led to police violence and the injury of 30 people.
At the heart of these protests is the widely held belief in Bangladesh that the state is corrupt. Those protesting at power shedding, for example, accuse electricity board officials of taking bribes, whilst disputes over multinationals revolve around the content of power share contracts, and allegations of bribery by corporations of government ministers. Rumour, counter rumour, civil unrest, accusations and arrests are the order of the day in a fragile democracy marked by lack of accountability, secret deals and limited if no transparency. It is significant that the research was carried out during a period in which the country was controlled by a caretaker government which took radical action over corruption (from 2007–08) arresting and holding in detention hundreds of politicians and business people. Recent reports from groups such as Transparency International suggest that under the new Awami League government, perceptions of corruption remain extremely high.5
The role of the Bangladeshi state and its lack of accountability therefore underscores any discussion of Extractive Industry CSR in Bangladesh. As such, our findings are probably similar to those of other research projects which examine the micropolitics of CSR in contexts where the state is weak and unaccountable (see, for example, Zalik, 2004, Welker, 2009). As suggested at the end of the paper, besides providing employment and adding to the country's economic growth, corporations aiming at ‘socially responsible’ policies would do well to place their energies in pressing the governments they work with for greater transparency in their dealings, as well as being transparent themselves. Although Chevron is a signatory to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, for example, neither the details of its deals nor the findings of its environmental or social impact assessments are made public in Bangladesh.6 Indeed, whilst the company scores 88% for ‘Organisational Disclosure’ in Transparency International/Revenue Watch's 2011 data, it scores only 8% for ‘Country led disclosure’, figures which hint at corporate double standards.7
Section snippets
Chevron's vision of partnership
Chevron have a vision. Put simply, this is:
“ …. To be the global energy company most admired for its people, partnership and performance’.8
That ‘partnership’ is valued so highly by the company is re-iterated time and time again in their promotional literature. Indeed, it is integral to ‘The Chevron Way’:
Partnership
We have an unwavering commitment to being a good partner focused on building productive,
The Bibiyana Gas Field: a short history
That the Bibiyana Gas Field is about a quarter of a mile from the site of Katy Gardner's 1980s doctoral fieldwork is a co-incidence, but serves as a powerful reminder of how people's lives in apparently remote and rural places are bound up with global processes in multifaceted ways, drawing to our attention the complex interactions between global and local scales, or ‘the grips of worldly encounters’ which Anna Tsing calls ‘friction’ (Tsing, 2005: 4). These ‘grips of worldly encounters’ have
Imagining partnership
In their accounts of this period, Chevron Bangladesh's External Affairs team is keen to describe how much time and effort was devoted to developing positive relationships with the villages surrounding the gas field, transforming hostility and confrontation into partnership and support. After the rate of land compensation had been agreed, the design of community development programmes became key to the company's community engagement strategy, replacing what were seen by them as impossible
Disconnect development
Whilst in Unocal's days gifts such as tee shirts (with the company logo) were distributed at random, the Chevron programme became increasingly aimed at ‘community development’ and poverty alleviation. Some gifts were aimed specifically at the poorest. Slab latrines were distributed to households without hygienic sanitation.18
An easy flow of labour
Back in 2005 not everyone opposed the construction of the gas field. Indeed, for the many hundreds of landless people living in the villages that surrounded the installation it was seen as a huge opportunity. The early days of construction bore out these hopes. Many hundreds of people were employed as wage labourers, helping to build the plant and surrounding infrastructure. This included a small group of women, who worked on the roads. In contrast to the skilled workers at the plant, who are
Partnership as disconnection
We therefore come to an interesting paradox. Whilst Chevron must claim partnership to gain a ‘social licence to operate’ and enhance their reputation as an ethical and socially responsible global player, the partnerships that they have developed and the development practices of their partner NGOs ultimately contribute to their social disconnection from the villages that surround their Bibiyana gas field. NGOs are funded as intermediaries, carrying out programmes which bring them repute whilst
Conclusion: disconnect development versus development as connection
The irony of disconnect development is striking. Whilst local people are physically, culturally and economically disconnected from the gas field, Chevron must claim connection in order to promote their global reputation for ‘partnership’, so core to their ‘Vision’. Moreover, a particular praxis helps the company achieve the appearance of attachment, whilst following the corporate ethic of detachment (Cross, 2011). We term this ‘disconnect development’ because of the way that discourses of
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Dealing with social acceptance: The strategies of offshore petroleum extraction companies and stakeholder attitudes in Ghana
2021, Extractive Industries and SocietyCitation Excerpt :Studies by Kirat (2015) and Gardner et al. (2012), provide illustrative examples. Based on their study of Chevron Company's gas extraction in Bangladesh, Gardner et al. (2012) show how Chevron Company failed to fully connect with communities close to their area of operation through their provision of CSR programmes. The authors argued that Chevron's CSR programmes had little impact on meeting the needs of the locals who hoped for long-term investments and employment from the company.
Earning a social license to operate: Perspectives of mining communities in Ghana
2019, Extractive Industries and SocietyCitation Excerpt :Studies have documented instances where communities have considered developmental interventions as wholly inadequate rather than outrightly rejecting the company. It is argued that merely undertaking CSR projects may not elicit the necessary community support that the company may need (Eweje, 2007; Gardner et al., 2012; Gilberthorpe and Banks, 2012; Warnaars, 2012). This has led some scholars to question the wisdom of investing and undertaking social development projects in communities as a means of obtaining a social license to operate (Banerjee, 2008; Harvey, 2014; John R. Owen and Kemp, 2013).