Following cement

Cement is not a new material. Indeed, we can trace it back to the Roman Empire. It is essentially a mix of limestone, clay, and some additives such as ash or iron ore, which are heated to a high degree to make a rocky mass called clinker. This stage of making cement is the most energy intensive part in its manufacturing and is responsible for half of concrete’s CO2 emissions. Clinker is then taken into cement plants, broken down and mixed with materials such as gypsum and limestone to make the powder-like material we know as cement. To make concrete, cement is mixed with sand and gravel alongside water into a paste, and when this paste dries out, we get concrete. Concrete’s usage in architecture is often in the form of reinforced concrete, this is when concrete is mixed with steel roads or steel meshes enabling the construction of high-rises and skyscrapers.

Cement’s production chain therefore moves through stages. The first stage of producing clinker is fairly easy but very energy intensive. The second stage of breaking down clinker tends to be in plants close to quarries of limestone to cut down the need to transport limestone globally, making cement’s manufacturing links to extraction more obvious. Plants that grind clinker into cement can either be built close by or elsewhere, as clinker itself can be transported globally. It is only with the steps of grinding clinker or distributing cement that we can speak about a cement market. While the final phase of mixing cement into concrete does not usually require specific knowhow or high-skilled labour, it is incredibly resource intensive as it relies on huge quantities water and an incredible amount of sand. In short, there are complex processes entailed in producing a material that is typically regarded as quite boring and almost too banal to capture our imagination. The processes become visible when we start tracing how different resources come into making it and with what effects.

As this simple description of the manufacturing process indicate, concrete is a resource-hungry material. It relies intensively on water and energy. One very politically contested resource that makes concrete possible is sand. Like cement, sand is also one of the largest industrial goods in the world; it isn’t needed only to make concrete, which is already high in demand, but it also goes into asphalt—necessary for roads, land reclamation to extend territories or construct artificial islands, glass, electronics, and optic fibres. Sand is usually thought of an abundant resource, but it isn’t! Not all sand is the same, and not all can be used in the same way. For example, desert sand is not suitable for construction purposes because it is too fine and uniform to attach to concrete. Hence ironically, countries with huge reclamation projects have to either import sand or dredge it from sea and riverbeds even if they have access to desert sand. Sand dredging (or sand mining) from sea and riverbeds has drastic effects on biodiversity, infrastructure, and livelihoods. It has a large black market and it is sometimes extracted illegally. Sand as Laleh Khalil writes has always been important and in circulation, however it is only in the 20^th century that it became a global commodity and one of the scarcest resources in the world.

Concrete and development

The post-war moment helped foster concrete’s relation to modernity in both senses. First, as a modernist architectural aesthetic which relied on naked concrete as a representation of functionality and as a departure for ornamentality in buildings. Second, as a developmental process tied to modernisation and urbanisation with the massive need for post-war reconstruction. While it was once tied to an eclectic architectural style, it is important to remember that once you have cement, making concrete does not require a lot of skill. This eventually made concrete an empowering medium to use across the world for durable building as we will see in the examples below, especially for auto-construction (i.e. building one’s own house). Any one can use concrete for building and not in the same way that anyone can use tempered iron or wood or other material that requires years of apprenticeship and craftsmanship. This has led to the paradoxical stereotype of concrete as a cheap, stigmatised material in certain contexts, but it also makes it in increasing demand worldwide.

Attention is usually directed to how the cement market operates amongst the major producers and consumers and their construction and infrastructure projects; typically China and the US. However, we can see cement’s complex relation to development also elsewhere. For instance, in 2011 Africa was dubbed as the “last great cement frontier” by the cement industry. The claim banked on the continent’s rapid urbanisation and demographic boom, as well as anticipating increasing demand for post-conflict reconstruction in houses, public building, development corridors and other major infrastructural projects. This made institutions such as the World Bank actively promote cement as one of the key sectors for economic development in the continent, particularly as it is actually produced in several African countries. In 2016, the World Bank identified two major cartels, in Egypt and South Africa, and nine pan-regional firms. Several African countries are high producers and high exporters, with many exports going to other African countries.

Scholars of West Africa, such as Armelle Choplin, note cement’s omnipresence; in companies, advertising and billboards, its crude powdery forms, as a symbol or indicator of growth (where per capita cement consumption is used as proxy for GDP) or as a profitable commodity for large cement companies —multinational or national— as well as small actors in the construction sector, or even individuals who would like to build their own houses themselves. Cement, therefore, is seen as a desirable object. As a resource, it does not fit neatly with frameworks of the resource curse that have been used to understand the paradox of oil-rich countries. It also does not carry the weight of a colonial history that sticks with other materials and commodities. Indeed, while it is a material intertwined with colonial relations and European domination in the market, it is also increasingly being reclaimed as a local product, by national or African based companies making it an interesting geopolitical material.