Finally, many thanks to Ken Barlow at Zed Books for his positive support and especially for his immense patience. Hicks Africas New Oil: power, pipelines and future fortune. Some additional chapters for the book were subsequently solicited from authors whose work clearly spoke to the notion of displacement economies, and which has greatly enhanced our collective endeavour. African Arguments - Debating Ideas aims to reflect the values and editorial. While Mary Celeste prepared to sail, the Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia lay nearby in Hoboken, New Jersey, awaiting a cargo of petroleum destined for Genoa via. Also, thanks to Oliver Bakewell, Finn Stepputat and Bjørn Møller, who commented on versions of some chapters presented at various conferences. I would also like to thank other colleagues who contributed insightfully to discussions of working drafts at the workshop: Michael Barrett, Mirjam de Bruijn, Ilda Lindell, Mats Utas and Wolfgang Zeller. She writes for BBC, the Guardian, World Politics Review, Janes Intelligence Review, Africa Report, Bloomberg and many others. These include Sverker Finnstrom, Graeme Rodgers and Henrik Vigh. Some who attended this event with papers were subsequently unable to be part of the book project itself, but their contributions to the early discussions were extremely valuable.

I also thank the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala for its wider support for my programme on Political Economies of Displacement in Southern Africa (2006–10), which was an initial laboratory for these ideas, and for funding the workshop that first brought together many of the authors for this volume.

In addition I am particularly grateful to Graeme Rodgers and an independent reviewer for their extensive and astute comments on this chapter.

Chapter 1 Displacement economies: paradoxes of crisis and creativity in Africa I would like to express my deep appreciation to all the contributors to this volume whose work has helped significantly to shape the displacement economies framework in general.

Africa's New Oil by Celeste Hicks