Elusive Partnerships: Gas extraction and CSR in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper examines Chevron's programme of CSR at a gas field in Bangladesh. Whilst apparently building partnerships in the villages that surround the Bibiyana Gas Field, we suggest that the corporation remains detached from the local population via their community development programmes and employment policies. This contradiction is submerged by ideas and practices within global development discourse which celebrate the disconnection and disengagement of donors via the rhetoric of sustainability. Chiming with development praxis and the neo-liberal values which underscore it by stressing self-reliance, entrepreneurship and ‘helping people to help themselves’, the corporation's Community Engagement Programme does little to meet the demands of local people who hoped for employment and long term investment, a form of connection that is discordant to discourses of self-reliance and sustainability.