La Regione del Kouilou nell'ex-Africa Francese (Repubblica del Congo). Un'analisi sulla geografia e la territoriaizzazione economica per lo sfruttamento petrolifero

This article is a careful analysis of the economic territorialization for oil exploitation in the Southern Congo (Congo Brazzaville), in the Kouilou administrative Region. It is a synthesis of a wide on field geographical study carried out from 2008 to 2011. Methods from anthropology such as the participant observation and from the environmental geography, have been used to describe the socio-environmental system existing around the oil fields. The latter have activated on the time a new territorialization processes, which has been able to modify both the rural and urban landscapes. New social and ecological equilibriums have been created, but in the same time new conflicts have been produced. The article wants thus to highlight the different social actors acting in this new socio-ecological context, analyzing the counterposed visions that each actor (or stakeholder) holds about the other one. The contrast between Congolese civil society and energetic company for oil exploitation has been seen from the organizational point of view: inside each social organization and in-between two or more social organizations. This point of view facilitates the understanding of environmental conflicts.