Consent

John Morrison

Chapter Chapter 6 in The Social License, 2014, pp 72-90 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract There was once a mining company that was desperate to open a mine deep within the Australian outback. The challenge for the company was the fact that the mine would sit upon the land of indigenous peoples. Under Australian law, the company needed to gain the consent of the local community before any mining could start. Every month, the company’s anthropologist went to talk to the village elders. One old lady sat there in silence during every visit with her eyes closed, letting the men of the village voice their fears and concerns. The anthropologist was concerned by the silence of the woman. She wanted all the elders to speak. She wanted to consult fully. After two years of visits, the community was still withholding its consent. After one awkwardly long silence, the anthropologist was surprised to see that the woman had opened her eyes. The woman fixed the anthropologist in a long stare and said in her broad Aussie accent: “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”2

Keywords: Indigenous People; Foreign Policy; Indigenous Community; Mining Company; Internet Service Provider (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-37072-3_6

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137370723

DOI: 10.1057/9781137370723_6

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().