Extractivist Mega-Projects in Mozambique: Dispossession, Politicisation and Resistance in Moatize and Cabo Delgado

This article examines the social impacts of two major extractivist infrastructure mega-projects in Mozambique: Vale’s coal mining operations in Tete province and TotalEnergies’ LNG project in Cabo Delgado. Promoted by the Mozambican government and multinational corporations as catalysts of development and economic growth, these projects have instead deepened inequalities, leading to widespread dispossession and impoverishment of affected local communities. The article critically examines infrastructure development and applies the concept of ‘infrastructural harm’ to show how these projects create and reproduce systemic marginalisation. It introduces an innovative analytical framework of counter-infrastructure resistance, mapping how communities politicise their grievances and develop adaptive resistance strategies along a politicisation continuum. Drawing on a qualitative comparative analysis of the two case studies, the article traces the evolution of resistance across the different project phases – pre-construction, construction and operation. Findings reveal that while communities in Tete were silenced amid increased insecurity, resistance in Cabo Delgado escalated earlier and in more organised forms, feeding into wider regional unrest. By connecting the dynamics of infrastructural harm, politicisation and resistance, the article challenges the dominant development-through-extractivism paradigm and argues for approaches that centre on social justice and environmental sustainability in Mozambique and across the global south.