In Sara Geenen’s new contribution to the debate on extractive industries and development she zooms in on the concept of ‘local content’. On the basis of fieldwork in the DRC and in Ghana she argues that local content policies are implemented in complex political arenas, where the power holders use them as political instruments to enhance profit accumulation and control rents. Moreover they are embedded in the structural dynamics that permeate large-scale extractivist projects, producing (new) patterns of exclusion.

Geenen, Sara (2019) Gold and godfathers: local content, politics, and capitalism in extractive industries. World Development 123.

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