The importance of process in social impact assessment: Ethics, methods and process for cross-cultural engagement

Abstract

Social impact assessment (SIA) presents an important opportunity to draw cross-cultural encounters arising from project-based development efforts into wider procedures of engagement and negotiation that might address the imbalance in relationships between local communities, project proponents and states. In the SIA literature, however, ethical considerations have received relatively little explicit attention, with greater attention given to outcomes in the form of negotiated agreements and financial and employment results. This paper considers the question of SIA methods from the standpoint of recent Australian national guidelines on ethical engagement with Australian Indigenous people, and argues for much greater attention being given to process and its implications for just and sustainable outcomes in SIA research.In thinking about the practices of cross-cultural engagement, whether it is in the form of personal encounters with cultural difference, formal processes of intercultural consultation in professional fields such as planning and service provision or structured settings such as cross-cultural negotiation and social assessment, we are often confronted with circumstances that are somewhat distant from social theory's complex abstractions of relationships between abstract selves and abstract others. Concern with difference and alterity has really driven much of Western philosophy for more than 50 years, producing some of the most exciting and frustrating debates in social science. Yet it is the performance rather than theorising of cross-cultural engagements that constitutes and reconstitutes societies and the social and environmental relationships within and between them. It is also the performance of these engagements that challenges societal assumptions of how things are, can be and should be.The field of social impact assessment (SIA) is one in which cross-cultural relationships, or at least the interface between co-existing cultural groups in the context of a development project, is subject to some degree of critical scrutiny

Ethical assessment of new technologies: a meta‐methodology

“…The term "ethical framework" is often used in the context of environmental ethics, but tends to be using that term to refer to an environmental model such as I = PAT (Gupta, 2009) or social impact assessment processes (Howitt, 2005) (Genus & Coles, 2005) and technical designs with improved responsiveness to social concerns (Schot, 2001), but the need for a professional ethicist to design the process is generally identified (Reuzel et al, 2004).…”

Social impact assessment and ethical research principles: ethical professional practice in impact assessment Part II

“…Instead, SIA of social research methods (Taylor et al 2004) and is is often invoked by general legal requirements around fundamentally with and about people. Therefore, research environmental policy and planning, or is done voluntarily ethics are applicable to all SIA practice (Howitt 2005). by agencies and companies motivated by corporate social This paper discusses the implications, issues and responsibility or because they are motivated by the business case for doing SIA and the advantages of a social challenges for SIA practitioners of the principles licence to operate (Esteves & Vanclay 2009;Vanclay & governing ethical research as developed in the companion Esteves 2011;Vanclay 2012;Franks & Vanclay 2013).…”

Social impact assessment, social justice and scales of knowledge: exploring the emerging mining industry in Solomon Islands

“…This, coupled with ongoing reporting of social impacts across the minerals sector in Melanesia, raises important questions about the role of various stakeholders 7 in negotiating and contextualising social impacts across international, national, provincial and local scales. While there is a plethora of literature arguing that local communities lack authority and that SIA processes are dominated by project proponents and corporate interests, particularly in an indigenous peoples context (O'Faircheallaigh, 1999;Lockie, 2001;Howitt, 2005;Lawrence and Larsen, 2017), there is an absence of empirical research, including that which reveal the power relations and social injustices within SIA processes, to support these claims. This thesis aims to contribute to filling this gap by critically analysing SIA and its application in the case of the Isabel nickel deposits 8 in Isabel Province, Solomon Islands.…”

“…As articulated by key SIA scholars Vanclay and Esteves (2011), "SIA is much more than the act of predicting impacts in a regulatory context; it is the process of managing the social aspects of development" (p. 3). As such, and as argued by others, SIA extends beyond being simply a methodology, tool or technique; it is also a philosophy about development and democracy (Lockie, 2001;Howitt, 2005;O'Faircheallaigh, 2009;.…”

“…While the introduction of SIA has reduced negative impacts for local communities affected by new mining projects, debate of their quality and scope are common (notable works include: Harvey and Bice, 2014;O'Faircheallaigh, 2015a;Aledo-Tur and Dominguez-Gomez, 2017;Lawrence and Larsen, 2017), with some scholars suggesting that SIA has not achieved its full potential as applied in the mining industry (O'Faircheallaigh, 1999;Lockie, 2001;Howitt, 2005;Walker, 2010). This, coupled with ongoing reporting of social impacts across the minerals sector in Melanesia, raises important questions about the role of various stakeholders 7 in negotiating and contextualising social impacts across international, national, provincial and local scales.…”