None provided.

Since the end of the mining boom in the aftermath of the subprime crisis, and enforced by the fact that at least 25 major mines in the Global South were already scheduled for closure before the mining boom started in the early 2000s, mine closure has become an increasingly important issue. Research in Guinea, Ghana and Burkina Faso revealed the particularly critical situation in the mining towns of Fria, Obuasi and Kalsaka whose mines closed recently. Since then, social services and infrastructure collapsed and the cities experienced a profound economic downturn. This situation is similar to a least a dozen other African mining towns. Based on our own research we will present a critical approach towards mine closure.

Almost all of the existing literature on mine closure focuses on the so-called "business case", underlining the economic viability of "proper mine closure" for companies and governments (World Bank/ IMF 2002). This includes crucial demands such as the "de-enclaving" of infrastructure or the creation of restoration funds already when founding mining towns.

However, a critical analysis has to go beyond these "technical" recommendations in order to equally question the "political sustainability" of mining towns in the wake of a new ("light") paternalism based on CSR and shareholder capitalism as well as the rise of investors from newly industrializing countries. The notion of "infrastructural power" (Mann 1984; Agnew 2005) will provide a starting point for the analysis of these new configurations.

Before the development of Lumwana, Kansanshi and Kalumbila mines, North western province was a predominantly rural, sparsely populated, area and had very little infrastructure. In order to attract skilled labour and conduct their business profitably, the two mining companies built new roads, housing, schools, hospitals etc. While the new (infra) structure serves the objectives of the new companies, it also implies a strong control over the everyday life of workers as well as restrictions on visitors. In addition, facilities such as education and health, provided by the mining companies are quite expensive for most of the workers.

This paper will explore the social order that new mining companies attempt to create in these remote rural places through infrastructure e.g. housing. How is infrastructure/space used as a device for disciplining workers and accumulating capital? How far does it contribute to social differentiation and exclusion? And in what ways do workers appropriate, change, or resist to the material, social, and legal order imposed by mining companies? This paper will take the deeply embedded nature of housing and infrastructure in the everyday life of mine workers as a lens for understanding the social consequences of mining capitalism in Central Africa.

This paper analyzes extractive infrastructures and their consequences on local life-worlds by focusing on the railways that facilitate the transportation of coal from the mines in Tete, a province in the interior of central Mozambique, to the coastal ports. These railways entail a promise of "development" and connection, but they have also become the locus of contestation and (violent) conflict. The railway infrastructure is central to success of the coal production in Tete, but it is also its most vulnerable aspect: popular protests against the mining companies have focused on blocking the railroads and armed combatants have attacked several coal trains in 2016 effectively obstructing the transportation. The transportation of coal has thus become at the center of multiple conflicts between the mining companies and dislocated populations, and the Mozambican government and armed opposition groups.

Based on ethnographic research (2016-2017), the paper aims to analyze how the extractive infrastructure in central Mozambique has become the locus of contestation and violence. It considers at least three elements essential for analyzing this particular formation and usage of the railroads: 1) The materiality of coal and of rail-infrastructure, which can relatively easily be disrupted, and its consequences for governance and control (Mitchell 2009). 2) The multiplicity of political and technopolitical actors with often divergent interests, including mining companies, government (transportation) agencies, public and private security actors, travelers, etc. 3) The political and historical context of armed violence, political polarization and exclusion in central Mozambique.

Over the past decade, a body of literature has emerged calling for the establishment of forward and backward linkages to resource extraction on the African continent. The expectation is that the formation of local value chains tied to processes of resource extraction and processing will create employment, develop technical capacities, encourage technology transfers, and ultimately lead to industrialization and economic diversification. But little is said of the possibilities for indigenous capital formation that might emerge in response to fostering backward linkages. Arguably, it is a class of local capitalists that stands to potentially benefit from "local content" policies. However, the implementation of such policies is complicated by a legacy of neoliberal structural adjustment that has devastated Africa's industrial capacity and transferred control of resource extraction into foreign, private ownership. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Zambia.

In Zambia, local mine suppliers and contractors have sought to secure more business from the copper mines. In response, Zambian policymakers have engaged in discussions around the feasibility of local content regulations, as part of a recent trend towards increasing "resource nationalism" in the governance of mineral extraction. Through an examination of the experiences of Zambian contractors and suppliers on the "new" (i.e. North Western Province) and "old" Copperbelts, this paper endeavors to address two key research questions. First, what are the patterns of indigenous capital formation in mine supply and contracting in neoliberal Zambia? Second, how have efforts to regulate mining firms over the past decade effected local mine suppliers and contractors?