Social Media Portrayals of Three Extractives Companies’ Funding of Sport for Development in Indigenous Communities in Canada and Australia

Abstract

The extractives industry (mining, oil, and gas) engages in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to reinforce its organizational legitimacy and enhance its public image. One such approach to CSR that is popular in the industry is through funding sport initiatives aimed at Indigenous peoples (often termed Sport for Development; SFD). On the surface, such funding may seem commendable and innocuous; however, questions have been raised about the ways in which such funding may obfuscate the harmful impacts that the extractives industry has had and continues to have on Indigenous peoples and their traditional territories. Through the adoption of a postcolonial theoretical perspective and in conjunction with netnographic methods and discourse analysis, this project involved a consideration of how extractives companies portray their funding of sport programs in Indigenous communities on social media. Given the research focus on Indigenous communities in the countries known as Canada and Australia, between country differences were also examined. Three discourses related to the extractives industry’s funding of SFD in Indigenous communities in Canada and Australia were developed. These discourses included the following: 1) Extractives companies are proud “partners” of Indigenous communities; 2) Extractives companies are committed to helping Indigenous communities in Canada and Australia; and 3) Canadian extractives companies are future focused and past-blind, while Australian extractives companies are advocates for reconciliation. Overall, extractives companies in Canada and Australia were found to use social media to portray themselves as responsible and committed partners of Indigenous communities, while obscuring the ongoing histories of colonialism through discourses of empowerment and development through sport. Suggestions are made regarding ongoing interrogation of the ways in which the extractives industry perpetuates colonialism.