ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. This book explores the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of the global mining sector and local communities by focusing on a number of international cases drawn from various locations focusing on Canada, the Philippines, and Scandinavia. These jurisdictions present rich and varied grounds for exploring mining company-community relations. The book argues that the 21st century has seen a convergence of three historically antagonistic forces—Indigenous rights and aspirations, government social and environmental priorities, and corporate interests and management priorities—that produced intense conflict over mining and then converted these challenges into the foundation of mutually-beneficial arrangements. In Canada, industrial developments, and resource extraction, in particular, have been responsible for much of the landscape level change within Indigenous ancestral lands.
