‘Community Benefit Packages’: Development’s Encounter with Pluralism in the Case of the Mining Industry

This chapter draws from research in the Pilbara (Western Australia), and to a lesser extent in the Gulf of Carpentaria (Queensland), on the Indigenous engagement with the mining industry. Post-Native Title Act land use agreements have been made between industry and Native Title claimant groups, in these two regions as others, known generally as ‘community benefit packages’. These agreements and the range of support programs are based upon assumptions about the types of engagement that are to be encouraged and fostered. This chapter is a preliminary exploration of the ways in which these programs are embedded in the development discourse, which includes ‘community development’ and ‘business development’. The progressivist character of this discourse serves to channel Indigenous ‘stakeholders’ toward engaging with the formal and dominant economy, while those that choose not to, or are unable to, tend to become marginalised. Is there room for pluralism in this engagement?