Local government, mining companies and resource development in regional Australia: meeting the governance challenge

This report summarises the findings from a two-year research project into the governance challenges posed by large scale resource development in mining-intensive regions of Australia

Translating policy: Power and action in Australia's country towns

Controversies In its present condition, rural Australia is characterised by a discourse of decline that sees country towns and regions as places of demoralisation and despair. From a Foucauldian governmentality perspective, those who live in these spaces are not so much 'powerless' to the demands of urban-based governments and global capital, as rendered governable according to the socio-political ambitions of late capitalism. While important insights have been derived from such analyses, it is argued in this paper that excessive attention is often paid to the power of the state with little concern for the various ways in which local people engage with, and transform the strategies and effects of state power. Rather than utilising the concept of resistance to make sense of these interactions, a sociology of translation is adopted from the Actor Network Theory literature. Applied to two case examples, it shows how governmental policies and programmes are frequently the outcome of the interactions and negotiations that take place between all those enrolled in the actor-network

The limits to authority: developer interventions and neighbour problems on a master planned estate

Master planned estates are large suburban developments built by a private sector developer. As part of its pursuit of building ready-made communities, the Developer becomes active in the management of the estate for years after its completion, subsequently finding itself in the difficult position of running, rather than simply building, new communities. In this paper, this challenge facing the Developer is explored with reference to Foucault’s writing on the problematics of governing under liberalism and the question of what is within the competence of the state and what is not. This paper shows how corporate property developers pose themselves similar questions and face the effects of demarcating certain spheres of residential life as not within their domain. The example addressed here is the issue of managing problems between neighbours and the tensions arising from residents’ expectations that this is indeed a matter of development control

A corporate responsibility? The constitution of fly-in, fly-out mining companies as governance partners in remote, mine-affected localities

In some remote parts of Australia, mining companies have positioned themselves as central actors in governing nearby affected communities by espousing notions of 'voluntary partnerships for sustainability' between business, government and community. It is argued in this paper that the nature and extent of mining company interventions in nearby communities constitutes a new problematic for these corporate actors. Drawing on research conducted in two remote areas in Australia, this paper undertakes an analytics of government to ask how mining companies have become leading actors in determining the future of local, mine-affected communities. It is suggested that their interventions arise from two processes: industry priorities for securing a 'social license to operate' by making a positive contribution to affected communities; and the restructuring of the state which has created an institutional void in these remote localities. As a result, mining companies are 'filling the gaps' in local service delivery through a mode of governing that takes the form of patronage rather than partnership. This raises questions about the future viability of these communities once the mines eventually close, and new challenges of governing for corporate actors. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

‘Know your neighbours’: disaster resilience and the normative practices of neighbouring in an urban context

As part of community resilience policy, urban dwellers are advised to get to ‘know their neighbours’ so that they are more likely to turn to them in an emergency. But the idea that neighbours might function as resources for disaster preparedness fails to take account of the fact that neighbour relations are highly diverse and occasionally problematic. Drawing on residents' experiences of the 2011 floods in south-east Queensland, Australia, this paper examines how neighbouring practices and relationships prior to a disaster influence the nature and extent of support from neighbours when disaster strikes. It shows that emergency assistance can map onto existing neighbour relations, such that closer neighbour relations foster frequent and more reliable forms of help. However, the seriousness of the disaster event may be such that residents are aware of their responsibilities to one another as neighbours even if relations are relatively poor or absent. The paper yields important insights for disaster policy and practice in suggesting that community resilience should be embedded within local social practices such as neighbouring, but that neighbouring itself cannot be engineered into existence