ABSTRACT
Kate Symons uses the case of Anadarko and the Afungi communities to explore how Mozambique’s ostensible commitment to rights and its encouragement of “a good business environment” has provided opportunities for those fighting for community rights to use certain strategies and tactics to great effect, while at the same time, entrenching certain aspects of neoliberal development. Symons argues that the case of Anadarko in Cabo Delgado has demonstrated the power of a politicized approach from civil society activists, which emphasizes the relationship between expanded capitalist accumulation at a global scale and environmental dispossession suffered by poor and marginalized communities. By giving legal representation to communities, citizens have been empowered to seek greater procedural and distributive justice from a scheme that was initially imposed unfairly and secretively. However, Anadarko’s plans, as with many other mega-projects in Mozambique, have not been halted. Symons thus puts the notion of ‘victory’ at the centre of the debate: as land acquisitions in Mozambique intensify, activists and community victories may find that concentrating their attention on ensuring both procedural and distributive justice for relocated communities provides productive political terrain, even if such activities take place within wider capitalist development dynamics.
