ABSTRACT
This chapter examines extractives (mining, quarrying, oil and gas) industry-funded sport, recreational and cultural activities in primarily Indigenous communities in northern Canada. Our research highlights three key tensions: 1) those associated with the use of extractives funding to promote health in Indigenous communities; 2) those related to the ongoing role of extractive industries in colonisation; and 3) those inherent in the relationship between extraction, funding and notions of self-determination. After identifying and exploring these tensions, the chapter then turns towards implications for future policy, practice and research. Our work furthers understandings of sport, recreational and cultural programming delivery in the context of private-public partnerships between Indigenous communities and extractives companies in Canada and how it can be reimagined so that it does not continue to rely on the propagation of the catastrophes of colonialism and related environmental, social and cultural degradation.
