’’Materials for a Better Life’’: Strategic Minerals and the Sustainability Transition : A Study on the Strategic Framing of Cobalt & The Material-Discursive Practices of the Extractive Industry in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Rechargeable batteries are set to power sustainable development by 2030. In this context, the increasingly important role of certain ‘strategic minerals’ used in emerging renewable technologies has become highly topical. As the geopolitical landscape is changing as the world moves away from fossil fuels, a surge in demand for these minerals will entail an increase of production at unprecedented levels. A case in point and a focus of analysis in this thesis is the extractive sector sourcing one of the most important of transition minerals ‘cobalt’ that is predominantly mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Against the challenge of a secret and non-transparent mining industry, this thesis has identified and listed all operational and openly communicative Multinational Corporations (MNC’s) extracting cobalt in the DRC. By conducting a critical discourse analysis on seven different cobalt extracting MNC’s, the analysis unveils different ways in which the companies ‘frame’ cobalt as strategic. Thus, a new and relevant ‘material-discursive framework’ has been utilised to bridge the underlying discourses of these companies with their material practices relating to cobalt. By employing this theoretical framework, the findings point at three main logics of corporate narrative the MNC’s in the sample use to form and maintain their operational activities: securitisation, environmentalism and developmentalism. Central discourses within these themes point at the way in which companies seek to maintain their economic security and legitimacy in an increasingly contested industry by continuously representing themselves as central actors with the responsibility and knowledge to deliver sustainable development for local communities affected by the industry in the DRC and for the sustainability transition.