Hélène Blaszkiewicz is currently completing her PhD at the Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3.
Extractive capitalism in Africa is characterised by the active participation of diverse private actors: multinational mining companies and financial investors of course, but also logistics and transport companies which directly export minerals and import the inputs that enable mineral extraction and refining. In the Central African Copperbelt, large and less large companies are weaving a dense network both sides of the Zambia/DRC border, which is daily criss-crossed by trucks coming and going from both sides. I conducted research on these companies for my PhD program from July 2017 to January 2018. I worked for two months as an intern in one of the biggest logistics and transport companies (here called X), present on both sides of the border and very active in the mining industry. I was mostly working from X offices in Ndola, but also visited Kitwe, Chingola, Kasumbalesa and Lubumbashi offices.
Company X is present in many African countries, and especially on both sides of the DRC/Zambia border that splits the Copperbelt in two. Studying the same company in two bordering countries can reveal profound differences between the two societies.
The first difference that catches the eye of an observer of X’s offices in the Zambian Copperbelt and in Haut-Katanga is their respective size. The Zambian Copperbelt offices house less than a hundred people, split among three offices. In Lubumbashi, one structure houses more than two hundred people. This imbalance reflects the different position Zambia and DRC have in the global economic system: Katanga is mostly dominated by mineral production, necessitates a lot of paperwork for exportation, whereas for Company X, Zambia is primarily a transit country, where the paperwork to be produced by a custom clearing company is less onerous. As the official trade statistics show (which report of course only registered trade), transit goods are of greater importance, value and volume wise, compared to export or import flows to/from Zambia itself. In 2016, more than 65 % of all transit goods were of refined copper, and around 18 % was semi-refined cobalt.
The second difference is the general atmosphere in the two offices of company X. One stereotype I heard several times on the border proved to be partly true: there is much more stress on the Congolese side than on the Zambian side, which also served to reinforce dynamics of secrecy and distrust discussed below. The procedures for clearing goods are much greater on the Congolese side, and relations with public officials more tense. X employees in Lubumbashi complain about the corruption that reigns in the DRC, in their personal and professional life. The general social atmosphere is also much more unstable than in Zambia, and it is not unusual to hear gunshots and for employees to be sent home in an emergency.
Participant observation in company X provided a great experience for research as it gave me direct knowledge from within the company; I had access to practical, technical and mundane information about the logistics and customs clearing world that an interviewee would perhaps not judge important to disclose. The personal relationships I was able to build with my temporary colleagues also enabled me to obtain routine information about the daily life of the company, which furthered my understanding of the stucture’s core activity.
Participant observation, however, also presents a series of issues and challenges for a researcher in social sciences. First, company owners and employees may distrust researchers, reinforcing business secrecy toward ‘sensitive’ information. I chose to be honest concerning my motivations, PhD status and research interests. My position was supposed to be a “win-win” situation: giving me access to information from within, and giving management expert work for free. Despite this, my position was precarious, as the internship lasted only two months. Some employees, especially in the Lubumbashi office, were reluctant to share information with me, as they realized my position was temporary, and thus that the benefits derived from my work would be minimal, whereas the benefits for my research were enormous. For example, I attended a meeting in Lubumbashi related to the logistics of copper and cobalt ores between company X, its biggest client and the main transport operator. The Director of Operations of company X was uneasy: he called me an opportunist and told me that if he had been in charge, I would have stayed in the car. Since the logistics market on the Zambia/DRC border for mining contracts is highly competitive, some managers were reluctant to share commercially sensitive information with me. They imagined that my publications, available in open access on the Internet, would undermine their market position. This shows the problem of trust in the sector, especially towards an academic outsider.
A second aspect arising from the researcher’s ambiguous position is the problem of defining tasks. Being a young and inexperienced foreigner in the corporate world of logistics, yet being hired as an expert, expectations regarding my work were equally ambiguous. Some company X employees had a disillusioned view of my work, advising me not to “reinvent the wheel” in an industry they had worked in for years. Conversely, I sometimes received emails asking me to “find rapid improvements” to a problem such as internal organization charts, upon which I had no expertise whatsoever.
Finally, the ambiguous position a researcher has as an intern gives rise to supervision and hierarchy problems within the company. I had been recruited by the country top manager, but was not under his direct supervision while working in the Copperbelt offices. As I was not paid for my work, I myself didn’t feel like part of the company, or at least being responsible for my actions in front of the manager’s staff. I was thus autonomous in defining my schedule and movements. When I attended a meeting in the DR Congo for example, I did so because Mr. J, in charge of the Copperbelt office, agreed to send me on his behalf. I however realized a couple of days later, when already in the DRC, that the Managing Director had not been informed about my trip. This situation put me in an uncomfortable position, creating conflict between these two senior managers and their colleagues in the DRC. This event highlighted deeper characteristics of supervision, hierarchy and ways of managing in this multinational company, but also different views of the organization and personal disagreements between the two persons who were supposed to supervise my internship. A few weeks after my departure from the company, I learnt Mr. J. had been transferred to another position in South Africa. The other employees viewed this transfer as a way for the Managing Director to regain control over the Copperbelt office by replacing Mr. J. who had been in this position for 11 years.
Thanks to the internship at the multinational company X, I gathered a great deal of key information related to the functioning of a custom clearing company on the Zambia/DRC border. However, not all such information can be used in academic publications. Now that I have to write up my research, it is difficult to know what I can and cannot say about the company’s actions, especially when they are illegal: do I have to choose between the twin risks of legal action and self-censorship?