In this paper we share recent research experiences on livelihoods in the framework of largescale extractivist projects in Northern and Central Mozambique. Namely, we will focus on the burgeoning LNG industry and the local (environmental, social, political) impacts of its infrastructural development in the provinces of Cabo Delgado and Sofala, exploring to what extent this new extractivist form poses continuities or discontinuities vis-à-vis older mining histories in both regions. Specifically, we will offer two case studies – the implantation of the logistics base in Pemba, Cabo Delgado, and the prospect of a new gas industry taking off in Buzi, a costal district of Sofala, particularly known for its vulnerability to cyclones and floods in the context of climate change – to debate the ‘genre’ and ‘location’ of conflicts (land-based, environmental justice-based) and the wide range of developmental expectations that have emerged and what kind of social and political mobilizations they have spurred. Together, we propose to look at expectations and conflict as political expressions of a wanting developmentalism that gravitates around top-down assemblages and conglomerates in Mozambique. As those projects disseminate expectations to leverage their social acceptance, they also follow a trail of extractive conglomerates operating in colonial and post-colonial Mozambique. In Buzi, for example, the imminent consolidation of the gas industry allows people to ignore the post-cyclone destruction and revive the ‘beautiful village’ where ‘everyone had a job’ as in the times of the colonial, later state-owned, Companhia do Buzi.

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Mozambique,Conflict,Extractivism