The tyranny of localism: Indigenous participation in community-based environmental management

Abstract

This paper examines the claim that community-based environmental management is fairer and more democratic than so-called ‘top-down' approaches. The paper examines the experience of Australian indigenous peoples with a national, community-based environmental management programme. The analysis of the programme reveals systemic marginalization of indigenous peoples. The paper suggests that ‘bottom-up' governance serves to magnify the importance of local material and symbolic contests in which indigenous groups are engaged. Community-based environmental management can fail precisely because of what many of its advocates take to be its more democratic quality: its localism.