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Book reviewed for Development in Practice journal 2009

Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh and Saleem Ali (eds)(2008)

Earth Matters: Indigenous peoples, the extractive industries and corporate social responsibility, Sheffield:
Greenleaf Publishing Ltd., 2008, ISBN: 978-1-906093-16-7, 272 pp.

What Matters: For two centuries the Extractive Industries (EI) were known by their generic name Mining
Companies/Corporations. It was prior to, and in preparation for, the United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development (UNCED) Rio 1992, that this christening took place. A baptism which was meant to be a
strategy to transform the industry’s bad-boy image to the respectable one of corporate citizens. Interestingly
1992 was also declared the International Year for the World's Indigenous People(s). Prior to this event
Indigenous Peoples were better known by their anthropological names, which they resented. They considered
them derogative. By recognising their distinct identity the UN began a process of acknowledging their political
rights. Few at that time saw a correlation between these two moves. But a decade and a half later we can say that
both these steps by the UN and the mineral industry were neither coincidental nor unintentional. The seventies
and eighties saw uprisings after uprisings of Indigenous Peoples for self-determination and revolts particularly
against the mineral industry/corporations. Even though seemingly isolated from one another at that time, the
phenomenon was global. It was also a time when the markets forecasted increased demand for minerals. Facing
mass, militant, political resistance, a worried industry panicked. Stopping short of any apology they decided to
reinvent themselves. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) became the mantra of an industry desperate to
metamorphose into a new avatar.

The thirteen chapters in Earth Matters address three approaches to the debate on CSR: the ‘cynical’ one; a
second that believes that CSR is necessary for corporations to have a ‘social licence to operate’ as an ‘integral
part of a strategic approach to maximising profits’; and the third that ‘emphasises that CSR must involve
activities that would not be dictated by purely selfish calculations of corporate interest’ (Introduction pg. 2).
Twenty eminent scholars from as far afield as Canada, UK, New Zealand, and Australia study the dynamics of
mining corporations in places as remote as Russia, Surinam and New Caledonia. The book brings out a varied
analysis on a complexity of problems faced by the EI as it redefines itself through CSR. Each of its chapters
thrashes out the pro’s and con’s of CSR as a model as well as in its practice. The good and bad about the EI’s
are considered and it is sympathetic to the situation of the Indigenous Peoples. Generally however the book as a
whole sounds more as an apologist of the EI and CSR, rather than as a critique, even though some of its writers
have given critical views.

Using a wide range of state-of the art research tools they have attempted to dissect this new animal on the
geography of the Indigenous Peoples. Sharman Haley and James Magdanz in Chapter 2 have creatively used
them to analyse the ‘social effects of increasing integration in the cash economy’ (Pg 29) of the Indigenous
Peoples and they have come up with some illuminating results. Of particular interest is the chapter on
Indigenous women, by Ginger Gibson and Deanna Kemp Chapter 6, ‘Mining communities and sites are
constructed as male landscapes (Collis 1999, Robinson 1996)’ where ‘segregated gender roles’ go to ‘maintain
the capitalist mode of production’ (Pg. 111). It would have been interesting if they had elaborated a little deeper
on the question of why the mining sites, in particular, are more macho when compared to the modes of
production of the non-mining industries. Catherine Coumans ‘Realising Solidarity’ Chapter 3, documents in
good detail the NGO ‘collaborations’ ‘with indigenous peoples (who) have provided some NGO’s with a chance
to deepen their understanding of power relations and human rights in the complex political contexts’ (Pg. 44).
Missing from this list are the political organisations that the Indigenous Peoples have organically built-up.
Considering that it was in response to their massive, militant and global resistance which compelled
corporations to go in for this strategic shift, mentioning them would have helped to go past the stereotype that
over-credits NGOs and civil society initiatives.

Apart from using the lower case to address Indigenous Peoples (the only place where the capital ‘I’ and ‘P’ is
used is in some citations, this could well be a publishers fault though), the book’s weakness lies in relying
heavily on an Euro-American frame of methodology and understanding. Indigenous ethos and genious is
handled in a matter-of-fact way, rather than as something more valuable than the minerals beneath them. In
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many of the solutions or suggestions the onus seems to be put on the Indigenous communities and NGOs to
upgrade their skills and information about a system that is weighed against them.

The book is largely devoted to CSR and on this topic it is a very good reference source both for scholars and for
Indigenous Peoples organisations. It will specifically help the latter to know how the other side thinks. It is a
mine of information on the subject and there is much that can be extracted from it for further research. However
it should be noted that much of it has been written during the past five years, the boom-time of the mineral
economy. Therefore it remains to be seen in the coming years of this economic slowdown, if CSR will be
affordable for the corporate world or else the avatar and its mantra CSR may also go the same way as their
predecessor, the defunct Mines & Minerals for Sustainable Development MMSD.

Xavier Dias is the Editor of Khan Kaneej & ADHIKAR (Mines Minerals & RIGHTS) India’s only newspaper
dedicated to the social aspects of mining. He is also the spokesperson Jharkhand Mines Area Coordination
Committee JMACC, an alliance of fifty two mass organisations of communities impacted by mining in the
Adivasi (Indigenous) homeland of Jharkhand India. reachxdias@gmail.com