Discursive Interventions: Consultation, Proponent Interventions and the Governance of Mining in Nunavut - Willow Scobie

The literature on resource extraction governance points to the development of complex arrangements, once dominated by central governments, of “state, quasi-state, and non-state actors operating across a diversity of spatial scales” (Perreault, 2006: 152). Frequently, this “decentering” involves corporations as central actors in the design and implementation of decision-making processes (Himley, 2013). The emerging and evolving institutions of resource governance therefore become the nexus of interactions between multinational corporations and indigenous communities wherein new governing practices take shape and new and existing relations of power are embedded. Examining the NIRB consultation processes as one such nexus, we analyze the interventions of the Proponent (mining corporations) in the Mary River and the Back River mining projects.