Preface
Every year, Oil and Gas (O&G) companies spend a significant amount of money
on social investment programmes in communities that host their activities. Yet the
benefits of these programmes are debatable. This book reports on a qualitative study,
which explored O&G social investment experts’ discursive understandings of their
social investment practices.
For this book, I talked to 20 O&G social investment experts from 11 different countries, and government representatives from two countries that hosted O&G companies. I also analysed the social investment guideline documents most frequently
utilised by experts, namely the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability; and the World Bank
Group (WBG) Community-Driven Development Principles. I used discourse analysis
to examine and interpret the interviews and guideline documents.
When O&G experts talked about social investment, they adopted four main
discourses, often in concurrent and conflicting ways. I describe these as working
on, working around, working for and working with discourses of social investment. Working on discourses revealed one-way and top-down understandings of
social investment, where companies assumed they were the keepers of knowledge and the agents of development. Working around discourses positioned social
investment as ultimately fulfilling the company’s operational interests, but also
as benefiting communities. Working for discourses underpinned social investment
developed for the purpose of meeting licence compliance requirements, which
tended to focus on the government’s agenda for social development. Working
with discourses emphasised community-centred and participatory understandings
of social investment.
In this book, I argue that working with discourses represented the ideal approach
to social investment. However, participants’ use of working with discourses was
complicated by their simultaneous use of other discourses in discussing their social
investment practices. Similarly, the guideline documents drew on all four discourses
of social investment in complex and conflicting ways. O&G experts’ contradictory
representations of social investment may have reflected the contradictions that were
also evident in the guideline documents, which influenced their work. The experts’
use of the four discourses of social investment highlighted the contradictory nature of
xi
Every year, Oil and Gas (O&G) companies spend a significant amount of money
on social investment programmes in communities that host their activities. Yet the
benefits of these programmes are debatable. This book reports on a qualitative study,
which explored O&G social investment experts’ discursive understandings of their
social investment practices.
For this book, I talked to 20 O&G social investment experts from 11 different countries, and government representatives from two countries that hosted O&G companies. I also analysed the social investment guideline documents most frequently
utilised by experts, namely the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability; and the World Bank
Group (WBG) Community-Driven Development Principles. I used discourse analysis
to examine and interpret the interviews and guideline documents.
When O&G experts talked about social investment, they adopted four main
discourses, often in concurrent and conflicting ways. I describe these as working
on, working around, working for and working with discourses of social investment. Working on discourses revealed one-way and top-down understandings of
social investment, where companies assumed they were the keepers of knowledge and the agents of development. Working around discourses positioned social
investment as ultimately fulfilling the company’s operational interests, but also
as benefiting communities. Working for discourses underpinned social investment
developed for the purpose of meeting licence compliance requirements, which
tended to focus on the government’s agenda for social development. Working
with discourses emphasised community-centred and participatory understandings
of social investment.
In this book, I argue that working with discourses represented the ideal approach
to social investment. However, participants’ use of working with discourses was
complicated by their simultaneous use of other discourses in discussing their social
investment practices. Similarly, the guideline documents drew on all four discourses
of social investment in complex and conflicting ways. O&G experts’ contradictory
representations of social investment may have reflected the contradictions that were
also evident in the guideline documents, which influenced their work. The experts’
use of the four discourses of social investment highlighted the contradictory nature of
xi