‘Our’ Community: Corporate Social Responsibility, Neoliberalisation, and Mining Industry Community Engagement in Rural Australia

Robyn Mayes, Paula McDonald and Barbara Pini
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Robyn Mayes: John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth WA 6845, Australia
Paula McDonald: School of Management, Queensland University of Technology, PO Box 2434, Brisbane, Qld 4001, Australia
Barbara Pini: School of Humanities, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, Qld 4111, Australia

Environment and Planning A, 2014, vol. 46, issue 2, 398-413

Abstract: This paper addresses contemporary neoliberal mobilisations of community undertaken by private corporations. It does so by examining the ways in which the mining industry, empowered through the legitimising framework of corporate social responsibility, is increasingly and profoundly involved in shaping the meaning, practice, and experience of ‘local community’. We draw on a substantial Australian case study, consisting of interviews and document analysis, as a means to examine ‘community-engagement’ practices undertaken by BHP Billiton's Ravensthorpe Nickel Operation in the Shire of Ravensthorpe in rural Australia. This engagement, we argue, as a process of deepening neoliberalisation simultaneously defines and transforms local community according to the logic of global capital. As such, this study has implications for critical understandings of the intersections among corporate social responsibility, neoliberalisation, community, and capital.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; neoliberalisation; community; mining; community engagement; global capitalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:46:y:2014:i:2:p:398-413

DOI: 10.1068/a45676

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