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Many contemporary indigenous movements deploy strategies of counterglobalization that make innovative use of the architecture of globalization. This article examines an indigenous political movement that took legal action to gain compensation and limit the environmental impact of the Ok Tedi copper and gold mine in Papua New Guinea. Even though the campaign sought to balance the desire for economic benefits with the protection of local subsistence practices, its objectives were frequently misinterpreted. Indigenous movements that deviate from an antidevelopment position run the risk of being seen as greedy rather than green. Instead of reproducing allegories about the successful exercise of veto power over development projects, anthropologists need ethnographic accounts that analyze the complex ambitions of indigenous movements and the risks of particular strategies of counterglobalization.

The mining industry moves more earth than any other human endeavor. Yet mining companies regularly claim to practice sustainable mining. Progressive redefinition of the term sustainability has emptied out the concept of its original reference to the environment. Mining companies now use the term to refer to corporate profits and economic development that will outlast the life of a mining project. The deployment of corporate oxymorons like sustainable mining is one of the key strategies corporations use to conceal harm and neutralize critique.

This article examines the promotion of corporate oxymorons that conceal the harm caused by corporations to people and environments. They are part of a larger set of strategies used by corporations to manage or neutralize critique. They often pair a desirable cover term such as safe or sustainable with a description of their product, for example cigarettes or mining. Repetition of the resulting contradictions-safe cigarettes or sustainable mining-renders the terms familiar and seemingly plausible. We suggest that the analysis of corporate oxymorons provides a valuable entry into the anthropology of capitalism.

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