ABSTRACT
Mining companies are in the business of extracting valuable natural resources for profit. The technical, legal and commercial functions which support efficiencies in the extraction of resources are understood as being at the core of this business. Over the past two decades the industry has witnessed the necessity and emergence of community relations and development (CRD) functions, essentially under the rubric of sustainable development (SD) and corporate
social responsibility (CSR) (IIED, 2002; Buxton, 2012). A powerful pro-social industry discourse replete with terms such as “social licence” (Owen and Kemp, 2013; Prno and Slocombe, 2012), “benefit sharing” (Zandvliet and Anderson, 2009; Hamann, 2007; Muthuri, 2007), “community participation” (ICMM, 2012a ; Kemp, 2010a; IIED, 2002) and “partnerships for development” (ICMM, 2011; McPhail, 2008; Hamann, 2004) has come to stand as evidence of the value assigned to this emergent function.
