7.2 The Guideline Documents and Working with Discourses of Social Investment
95
expectations may be problematic. The Performance Standards and the CommunityDriven Principles do not acknowledge the tensions and other obstacles that companies might encounter when adopting a participatory approach to social investment.
This in itself introduces another obstacle for experts who draw upon the guidelines
for implementing their ideal social investment. Faced with dilemmas in practice,
experts may end up questioning their own practices rather than recognising that these
dilemmas pre-exist, but are not addressed in the guideline documents. It is perhaps
not surprising that the participants in my study expressed contradictory understandings of social investment (see Chapter 6), since the complexities of enacting social
investment in practice are not explicitly addressed in any of the analysed documents.
Aside from the practical dilemmas of developing participatory social investment,
further tensions and contradictions are evident in the guideline documents. In the
following sections, I illustrate how the Performance Standards and CommunityDriven Principles draw on competing discourses of social investment. In particular,
I focus on the guideline documents’ use of working on, working around and working
for discourses of social investment. I also consider the connection between participants’ discussion of social investment and the ways social investment is constructed
in the guideline documents. I begin with working on discourses.
7.3 The Guideline Documents and Working on Discourses
of Social Investment
Both the Community-Driven Principle and the Performance Standards occasionally
drew on working on discourses when referring to a company approach to social
investment. As noted in Chapter 6, participants drew on working on discourses of
social investment when they talked about social projects where power relations were
one-way and top-down. In working on discourses, power was not constructed as bilateral; but rather, companies were portrayed as the keepers of knowledge and agents of
development. In top-down approaches to social investment, local communities had
very limited participation in designing and implementing social programmes, and
O&G companies were positioned as superior entities.
Working on discourses are evident in the IFC Performance Standards where
communities are mentioned in relation to project planning. The IFC Performance
Standards’ excerpt below describes how clients (for example O&G companies)
should approach host communities. Although the document recommends that the
affected community should be informed of the project’s execution, the document does
not specifically include the community as a participatory body in the decision-making
and design processes of the project:
Client will provide Affected Communities with access to relevant information on: (i) the
purpose, nature, and scale of the project; (ii) the duration of proposed project activities; (iii)
any risks to and potential impacts on such communities and relevant mitigation measures;
(iv) the grievance mechanism. (Torrance, 2012, p. 13)
95
expectations may be problematic. The Performance Standards and the CommunityDriven Principles do not acknowledge the tensions and other obstacles that companies might encounter when adopting a participatory approach to social investment.
This in itself introduces another obstacle for experts who draw upon the guidelines
for implementing their ideal social investment. Faced with dilemmas in practice,
experts may end up questioning their own practices rather than recognising that these
dilemmas pre-exist, but are not addressed in the guideline documents. It is perhaps
not surprising that the participants in my study expressed contradictory understandings of social investment (see Chapter 6), since the complexities of enacting social
investment in practice are not explicitly addressed in any of the analysed documents.
Aside from the practical dilemmas of developing participatory social investment,
further tensions and contradictions are evident in the guideline documents. In the
following sections, I illustrate how the Performance Standards and CommunityDriven Principles draw on competing discourses of social investment. In particular,
I focus on the guideline documents’ use of working on, working around and working
for discourses of social investment. I also consider the connection between participants’ discussion of social investment and the ways social investment is constructed
in the guideline documents. I begin with working on discourses.
7.3 The Guideline Documents and Working on Discourses
of Social Investment
Both the Community-Driven Principle and the Performance Standards occasionally
drew on working on discourses when referring to a company approach to social
investment. As noted in Chapter 6, participants drew on working on discourses of
social investment when they talked about social projects where power relations were
one-way and top-down. In working on discourses, power was not constructed as bilateral; but rather, companies were portrayed as the keepers of knowledge and agents of
development. In top-down approaches to social investment, local communities had
very limited participation in designing and implementing social programmes, and
O&G companies were positioned as superior entities.
Working on discourses are evident in the IFC Performance Standards where
communities are mentioned in relation to project planning. The IFC Performance
Standards’ excerpt below describes how clients (for example O&G companies)
should approach host communities. Although the document recommends that the
affected community should be informed of the project’s execution, the document does
not specifically include the community as a participatory body in the decision-making
and design processes of the project:
Client will provide Affected Communities with access to relevant information on: (i) the
purpose, nature, and scale of the project; (ii) the duration of proposed project activities; (iii)
any risks to and potential impacts on such communities and relevant mitigation measures;
(iv) the grievance mechanism. (Torrance, 2012, p. 13)