ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on experience at the interface of engagement between indigenous cultures and corporate cultures in Sapmi, and indigenous domains in Australia and the Asia-Pacific. It highlights the fragility of corporate actors' and indigenous peoples' dependence on personal relations as the basis for the performance of the formal processes of coexistence and engagement on the ground. The chapter argues that personal relations can provide both a basis for engagement and an arena in which to improve and refine good process in intercultural and place-based relations. It explores the significance of the interpersonal domain in the translation of corporate cultures and corporate policies into the social sphere, and the retranslation of the interpersonal back into the corporate sphere. Several communities have getting companies to commit to undertake social impact assessment (SIA) that take into account Saami perspectives. These mainly concern more general problems that have pervaded the environmental impact assessment process, and which are being reproduced in the SIA process.
