Indigenous movements and the risks of counterglobalization: Tracking the campaign against Papua New Guinea's Ok Tedi mine

Abstract

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.

Understanding ‘resource’ conflicts in Papua New Guinea

“…As Dan Jorgensen (2006) and others (myself included, see Banks, 2002) have pointed out, the equally impacted but less marginalised Awin people had little involvement or apparent interest in the lawsuit. The lawsuit, incidentally, has been promoted as an alternative means of resolving resource disputes to the route taken on Bougainville, but even a cursory examination of the two situations reveals marked differences, and the success of the action by the landowners is tempered by the fact that significant elements of the lawsuit are still being contested in the courts more than 10 years after it was first lodged (Kirsch, 2007).…”

Engaging communities in environmental communication

“…Bougainville and OK Tedi mines in Papua New Guinea endured ecological destruction as a direct result of bad mining practices (Kirsch, 2007). Australian mining giant BHP's operations at the OK Tedi copper-gold mine in the western province of Papua New Guinea resulted in one of the worst human-caused ecological disasters.…”

An Anthropology of Landscape

“…Other concerns include the appropriation and clearance of land by governments and multinational corporations for financial gain (Li 2010;Colchester et al 2006;McAndrew and Il 2004); debate as to whether there is population growth at the edge of protected areas in countries in Africa and Latin America and what effect this may cause (Joppa et al 2009, Wittemyer et al 2008; and protests by indigenous communities residing in PAs or displaced by corporations' industrial practices (Kirsch 2007;Obi 1997;Turner 1995;Survival International 2013;Horowitz 2010;Evans 2007: 43;McKenney et al 2004: 71-2).…”

“…At an international level Hilson feels there has been considerable improvement in CESR practice, particularly in the areas of environmental management and community development (Hilson 2006: 225). However, the extractive industries' practices are often criticized, particularly by community-based NGOs and activist organizations (see Whitmore 2006;Curtis 153 2007; Public Eye 2011; Mines and Communities (n.d.) ;Foster 2010;Kirsch 2010aKirsch : 92, 2010b. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were numerous small-scale and shallow quarries across the heathlands providing building materials for local villages and farms.…”