Narrating Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Rights Professionals and Agreements between Mining Corporations and Indigenous Communities: à qui l'homme sauvage?

This chapter discusses a critical study of agreements conducted between transnational mining companies and indigenous communities to share the benefits of mining subject to indigenous rights claims. It explores these agreements as both a process of norm socialization and a tool of global governance for mining and the construction of indigenity. Indigenous rights professionals should bear in mind the embedded politics in agreements and the existing contours of indigenous political space when strategizing about whether mining agreements are desirable. Indigenous rights academic shave warned of the impact that a mobilization of indigenous resources to engage with a Transnational Corporation (TNC) would have in the absence of a non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Further, legalism may have an effect on the trust between indigenous community and TNC. The role of indigenous communities in mining agreements is imbued with imagery and vocabulary from Rousseau's homme sauvage, as evinced by the language of the international and national legal frameworks for these rights.