Author Description

Where do lndigenous peoples turn when governments demand Indigenous communities 'shop-around' for social services and provisions through market style arrangements, at the same time the necessary funding is withdrawn by government? Where do Indigenous peoples turn when a state-owned enterprise impinges upon their rights to practice their traditional livelihood? Or, when the state sanctions foreign and privately financed resource extraction activities on their traditional lands? Or, what of those cases where the state refuses to recognise a direct relationship with lndigenous peoples, and instead negotiates directly with private interests seeking to profit from the development of lndigenous lands? This thesis, by PhD candidate Rebecca Lawrence, uses case studies from countries such as Australia, Sweden and Finland, and also draws on examples from parts of Asia, including Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Thailand, to explore how state and market actors respond to Indigenous claims and how Indigenous claims are themselves reconstituted through those particular responses. None of the case studies attempt to generalise a metatheory or normative critique of Indigenous rights, Corporate Social Responsibility, the 'market' or the 'state'. Nor does the thesis, as a whole, seek to theorise a fixed state, market and civil society triangle. Instead, by tracing specific and situated political contestations the case studies explore forms of governing that are everyday, bureaucratic, technical and ordinarily considered apolitical by the majority society.