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Conceptualizing Mining Impacts, Livelihoods and Corporate Community Development in Melanesia
Conceptualizing Mining Impacts, Livelihoods and Corporate Community Development in Melanesia
2013
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doi:10.1093/cdj/bst025
Advance Access Publication 12 May 2013
Introduction
The large-scale mining sector in Papua New Guinea has underpinned the
formal economy of the nation since independence in 1975. The sector has
also been the focus of intense high-profile conflicts over this period,
most notably the civil war on Bougainville sparked by the presence of the
* Address for correspondence: Glenn Banks, Department of Development Studies, School of People,
Environment and Planning, Massey University, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand; email: g.a.banks@
massey.ac.nz
484 Community Development Journal Vol 48 No 3 July 2013 pp. 484 –500
Conceptualizing mining impacts, livelihoods and CCD 485
CRA/Rio Tinto Panguna copper mine (see Filer, 1990; Regan, 1998), and the
international litigation over the environmental effects of the Ok Tedi
copper/gold mine (Banks and Ballard, 1997). Over its thirty-five-year
history, the relationships between the large-scale mines and their neighbour-
ing communities have been marked by shifting degrees of cooperation, con-
flict and accommodation. One potentially significant element of all of these
mining corporation – local community relationships has been variously
labelled ‘community development’ projects or programmes that have
originated from the corporations (Imbun, 1994, 2006; Gilberthorpe and
Banks, 2012). Such initiatives are potentially a critical element in shaping
Figure 1 The Papua New Guinea mining industry. Source: Papua New Guinea Chamber of Mining
and Petroleum.
Conceptualizing mining impacts, livelihoods and CCD 489
Instead, our argument is that the mine is a ‘necessary but not sufficient’ con-
dition to account for the nature and extent of the social changes that each of the
communities have experienced. In addition, each of the diverse ‘impacted
communities’ is characterized by pre-existing and more recent sets of hier-
archies, inequalities and power-laden sets of relationships, based around
gender, age and social and geographic status. The layering of spatially and so-
cially uneven access to resources from mine operations onto these already
diverse communities produces complex patterns of inclusion and exclusion.
Importantly, many of the most discussed social changes (inward migration,
alcoholism, rising violence and general social breakdown, for example) are
(i) The corporate promotion and support for ‘law and order’ initia-
tives. While such programmes have appeared from time to time
at most of the mine sites, one of the most obvious has been Barrick’s
support for the ‘Restoring Justice’ programme at the Porgera gold
mine that seeks to build and support the capacity of both formal
and informal law and order institutions in the valley and the
wider province (Barrick, 2008). This came about in large part due
492 Glenn Banks et al.
In this sense, the CCD programmes tend to operate at the margins of these
livelihood and community changes.
Concluding thoughts
Large-scale mining is a fundamental part of the development future of Papua
New Guinea. Operations are typically relatively long-term and the corpora-
tions have the potential to initiate a broad range of changes to the surrounding
communities over an extended period. CCD efforts vary but in each case are
locally significant and some have provincial or national developmental
Acknowledgements
We thank the various community members, government officials and
company staff who engaged with us in this project. For access to their sites
and personnel, we would particularly thank Steve Gimpel (Barrick
Porgera), Tim Grice (Newcrest, Lihir), Ian Middleton (OTDF, Ok Tedi),
Martin Paining (Ramu) and Greg Anderson of the Papua New Guinea
Chamber of Mining and Petroleum.
Funding
We acknowledge a grant from the NZAID International Development
Research Fund for this project.
Glenn Banks is Associate Professor, Development Studies, at Massey University, New Zealand.
He has a PhD in human geography from the Australian National University and has worked as a
researcher and consultant on large-scale mining in Melanesia for more than twenty years. He has
published widely on different aspects of the industry, with a particular focus on issues of conflict
and community change.
New Guinea in Port Moresby. She has a master’s degree from La Trobe University, Melbourne. Her
current work is on the resilience of health services around large-scale mines in Papua New Guinea.
David Kombako is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby.
He has a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and has interests in
a broad range of sociological issues within contemporary Papua New Guinean society.
Bill Sagir is a senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of Papua New Guinea. He has a BA
in sociology from UPNG, MA in human geography from Victoria University of Wellington and
PhD in anthropology from the Australian National University. He has a particular interest in the
differential impacts of mining, petroleum and gas projects on different groups of men and women in
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