Oil Movements: the Production and Government of Petro-(im)mobilities in East Africa

Abstract

Abstract

East Africa’s oil industry is shaping into a sector of significant politico-economic importance. Discoveries of commercially viable hydrocarbon deposits in Uganda’s and Kenya’s Lakes Albert and Turkana Basins respectively, have influenced ambitious infrastructure developments that start from but go beyond the two countries. This places the region in a geopolitical resource spectrum, marked by two multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects. Uganda is fast tracking the development of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project between Hoima and Tanga; as Kenya develops its multi-model Lamu-Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (LAPSSET) corridor, with an oil-pipeline component to move the country’s oil from Turkana to Lamu port. Each of these projects forms part of national development visions, that are well-knitted into a complex network and interconnections of international, transnational and local actors. These interconnections highlight the significance of performing mobilities. In this project, we explore how “oil movements” viewed within the perspective of these two projects, shape multiple (im)mobility landscapes, practices, relations; and how these landscapes, practices and relations are rendered (un)governable.