CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 220Extractivism and Socioeconomic IssuesMining and Resource ManagementAnthropological Studies and Insights

Indigenous movements and the risks of counterglobalization: tracking the campaign against Papua New Guinea's Ok Tedi mine

Open access
KIRSCH, STUART·2007·American Ethnologist
DOI 10.1525/ae.2007.34.2.303
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Many contemporary indigenous movements deploy strategies of counterglobalization that make innovative use of the architecture of globalization. This article examines an indigenous political movement that took legal action to gain compensation and limit the environmental impact of the Ok Tedi copper and gold mine in Papua New Guinea. Even though the campaign sought to balance the desire for economic benefits with the protection of local subsistence practices, its objectives were frequently misinterpreted. Indigenous movements that deviate from an antidevelopment position run the risk of being seen as greedy rather than green. Instead of reproducing allegories about the successful exercise of veto power over development projects, anthropologists need ethnographic accounts that analyze the complex ambitions of indigenous movements and the risks of particular strategies of counterglobalization.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1525/ae.2007.34.2.303

Cites

75 of 75 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Indigenous mobilization is usually more ambivalent than portrayed in academic debates or activist campaigns, and a reductionist portrayal can constrain actually existing people and their relationship to territory.

    “This body of work points out that Indigenous mobilization is usually more ambivalent than portrayed in academic debates or activist campaigns, and that a reductionist portrayal can constrain actually existing people and their relationship to territory (Cepek, 2016;Kirsch, 2007).”

    From Mining indigenous territories: Consensus, tensions and ambivalences in the Salar de Atacama (2022) · cites this paper as Kirsch, 2007

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 22

  1. Anonymous A 2001 Industry in Transition. Mining Journal, April 13: 267- 268.
  2. Barker, Geoffrey, and Stewart Oldfield 1999 BHP Admits Mine Is a Mess, but Downer Says Dig In. Australian Financial Review. August 12. Electronic document, http://afr.com, accessed August.
  3. Barsh, Russell Lawrence 1994 Indigenous Peoples in the 1990s: From Object to Subject of International Law. Harvard Human Rights Journal 7:33- 86.
  4. Brysk, Alison 2000 From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights and In- ternational Relations in Latin America. Stanford: Stanford Uni- versity Press.
  5. Chapman, Peter, Margaret Burchett, Peter Campbell, William Diet- rich, and Barry Hart 2000 Ok Tedi Mining Ltd (OTML) Environment Peer Review Group (PRG): Comments on Key Issues and Review Comments on the Final Human and Ecological Risk Assessment Doc- uments. April. Electronic document, http://www.oktedi.com, accessed August.
  6. Conklin, Beth 1997 Artful Politics: Aesthetics in Authenticity in Amazonian Activism. American Ethnologist 24(4):711-737.
  7. Conklin, Beth, and Laura Graham 1995 The Shifting Middle Ground: Amazonian Indians and Ecopolitics. American Anthropologist 97(4):1-17.
  8. Evans, Geoff 2002 Dealing with the Hardest Issues. Mining Monitor 7(1):11.
  9. Gladman, Darren, David Mowbray, and John Duguman, eds. 1996 From Rio to Rai: Environment and Development in Papua New Guinea up to 2000 and Beyond. Papers from the 20th Waigani Seminar, 1993. Vols. 1-6. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea Press.
  10. Gordon, John 1997 The Ok Tedi Lawsuit in Retrospect. In The Ok Tedi Set- tlements: Issues, Outcomes and Implications. Glenn Banks and Chris Ballard, eds. Pp. 141-166. Pacific Policy Paper, 27. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies and Re- source Management in Asia-Pacific, The Australian National University.
  11. Innes, Larry 2001 Staking Claims: Innu Rights and Mining Claims at Voisey's Bay. Cultural Survival Quarterly 25:12-16.
  12. International Council on Mining and Metals 2005 Leading by Example: Making a Difference through Partner- ship. Annual Review 2005. London: International Council on Mining and Metals. International Institute for Environment and Development 2002 Breaking New Ground: Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Development. The Report of the MMSD Project. London: Earth- scan Publications. International Water Tribunal 1994 Ecological Damage Caused by the Discharges from the Ok Tedi Copper and Gold Mine. In Mining. Second International Water Tribunal Case Books. L. Bijvoet, E. de Lange, and A. van Norden, eds. Pp. 49-85. Utrecht, the Netherlands: International.
  13. Kalinoe, Lawrence 2003 Independent Review Report on the Ok Tedi Community Mine Continuation Agreements and Related Matters. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea: Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, Australia.
  14. Susan Toft, ed. Pp. 143-155. Law Reform Com- mission of Papua New Guinea Monograph 6 and Pacific Policy Paper, 24. Canberra: National Centre for Development Stud- ies and Resource Management in Asia-Pacific, The Australian National University.
  15. 2002b Litigating Ok Tedi (Again). Cultural Survival 26(3):15- 19.
  16. 2004a The Backlash against NGOs. Paper presented at the Mines and Communities 2nd International Meeting, Mumbai, India, January 14-15. 2004b No Justice in Ok Tedi Settlement. Cultural Survival Quar- terly 28(2):52-53.
  17. Matit, Elizabeth 2005 Papua New Guinea: The Impact of Ok Tedi Mine on Indige- nous Women along the Fly River. In Third International Women and Mining Conference: Defending Our Lives, Demanding Our Rights. Kalluri Bhanumati, ed. Pp. 41-43. Hyderabad, India: Mines, Minerals, and People.
  18. Glenn Banks and Chris Ballard, eds. Pp. 113-117. Pacific Policy Paper, 27. Canberra: National Centre for Development Stud- ies and Resource Management in Asia-Pacific, The Australian National University.
  19. Sean Kingston. Mineral Policy Institute 2000 OTML Client to Pressure BHP. Press Release. November 9. Moken, Robin 2004 Notice from Kawok, Papua New Guinea, to the Prothono- tary of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. January 8. Munro, Kelsey 2004 Ok Tedi: Litigation Drowned in Tailings. Justinian. May 24. Electronic document, http://www.justinian.com.au, accessed May.
  20. Nader, Ralph 1996 BHP Still Stained by Ok Tedi Runoff. Australian Financial Review, September 24: 19. National HIV/AIDS Support Project, Papua New Guinea 2005 Situational Analysis for Strategic Planning at District Level. Western Province. Social Mapping Project. Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea: National HIV/AIDS Support Project. New York Times 2007 Well-Grounded Ethics Reforms. New York Times, January 10: A22.
  21. Townsend, William 1988 Giving Away the River: Environmental Issues in the Construction of the Ok Tedi Mine, 1981-1984. In Potential Im- pacts of Mining on the Fly River. J. C. Pernetta, ed. Pp. 107-119. United Nations Environment Program: UNEP Regional Seas Re- ports and Studies, 99, and SPREP Topic Review, 33. Geneva: UNEP.
  22. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt 2005 Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
KIRSCH, S.
Affiliations
University of Michigan (US)
Corresponding author
KIRSCH, STUART
ORCID
KIRSCH, STUART
Venue
American Ethnologist
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2007-05
Volume
34
Issue
2
Pages
303-321
ISSN
  • 0094-0496 (ISSN-L)
  • 1548-1425
DOI
10.1525/ae.2007.34.2.303
OpenAlex
W2054785321
Cited by
220
References
75
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 23
FWCI
34.89
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor, 251 d)
Locations
  • American Ethnologist (publishedVersion)
  • Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • George Washington University
  • University of Michigan
  • University of Auckland
  • University of British Columbia
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Extractivism and Socioeconomic Issues
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Building and Construction › Mining and Resource Management
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Anthropological Studies and Insights
Keywords
indigenous movements, Ok Tedi mine, Papua New Guinea, litigation, compensation, environmental impact, subsistence strategies, development projects, green politics

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review