Dissertation Research: Global Capitalism and the "Caring Corporation": Copper Mining and Community Development in Sumbawa, Indonesia

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0211197Keane / WelkerIndonesia is home to one of the largest Moslem populations in the world. This dissertation research by an anthropology and history student at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, examines corporate-sponsored community development in the region surrounding a copper mine controlled by Newmont, a U.S. corporation in Sumbawa, Indonesia. The objectives of this research are to trace the political, economic and social transformations taking place due to the corporation's presence and development activities, and to investigate how social actors work out moral understandings of these transformations and allocate resources through kin relations and notions of development, corporate responsibility, Islam, and abstract rights. Methods include participant observation with corporate personnel and local Sumbawans, structured observation of corporate meetings with community leaders and other intermediaries, archival research, and structured household interviews. The student will examine the relationship between development workers' and villagers' understandings of and support for four projects dealing with housing, farming, environmental rehabilitation, and health. The research will advance our understanding of traditional Moslem culture's relation to development, will shed light on a major phenomenon of global capitalism - corporate social responsibility, as well as contribute to the training of a young social scientist.