Financialization for Development? Asset Making on Indigenous Land in Remote Northern Australia

Alexandra Langford, Geoffrey Lawrence and Kiah Smith

Development and Change, 2021, vol. 52, issue 3, 574-597

Abstract: Indigenous Australian landowners are increasingly seeking to develop agricultural production on their lands to improve the welfare and economic opportunities of their communities. This can require substantial capital input and, in the absence of enough government funding, Indigenous groups are turning to private investors. Development literature has explored private sector‐led and ‘financialized’ approaches to development at a macro level as something that is done to communities; however, less research has examined how remote communities themselves seek to develop their natural assets through partnerships with businesses and with global finance. This article examines the work being done to prepare land for external investment. It provides an example of emergent assetization processes being undertaken outside the financial sector, driven by social outcomes seemingly beyond the domain of shareholder value. Paradoxically, individuals engaged in these asset‐making processes may oppose the withdrawal of direct funding for community development associated with a financialization of development, yet they are left with few options but to further these efforts by seeking private finance themselves — facilitating financialization for development. This interaction of structural effects and local agency complicates narratives of financialization as they are commonly presented and has important implications for Indigenous economic development in Northern Australia.

Date: 2021
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