Ethical perspectives on mining-induced dislocations in Eastern Congo

• Main Author: Ntungu, Rodrigue Bamenga
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Boston College 2018
• Subjects: Democratic Republic of Congo; Displacement; Resettlement; Mineral industries; Christian ethics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:108281

Thesis advisor: Andrea Vicini === Thesis advisor: Kristin E. Heyer === It might be unusual to identify the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a country where expulsions put at flagrant risk thousands of small farmers to make way for economic projects or natural resources extraction, as is the case in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, India, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. The lack of documentation and data greatly contributes to silencing the victims of dislocations in Eastern Congo. This research, therefore, voices six critical claims by raising the ethical question: how can Christian ethics—in the only African country with the greatest proportion (43.2 million) of baptized Catholics—humanize involuntary displacement and resettlement of communities? While the “resource curse theory” has revealed the challenges of a country riddled with economic constraints, political instability, and mining-induced conflicts, this research proposes the “protological ethics of land” as one approach to dislocations in the era of extractive industries. === Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2018. === Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. === Discipline: Sacred Theology.