Dr. Michael Hendricks presented his research on April 6 at the International Studies Association’s annual conference, which was held virtually. Hendricks presented his co-authored paper, “The Right to Prior Consultation? Assessing Individual-Level Attitudes in a Community Divided over Mining in South Africa,” during the “Power, Voice, and Rules: Understanding Conflict and Cooperation in Natural Resource Sectors” panel.
Hendricks’s paper focuses on the attitudes that shape prior consultation. Hendricks and his co-authors explore individual attitudes towards prior consultation and resource extraction in the realm of relational trust and institutional trust. Relational trust is the trust that individuals hold with other members in their community, and institutional trust is the trust that individuals hold towards governments and the mining industry.
They argue that individuals with higher levels of relational trust are more likely to demand the right to prior consultation and individuals with higher levels of institutional trust are more likely to see the right to prior consultation as not necessary. They confirm their argument drawing from fieldwork conducted in South Africa and original public opinion data from a 2016 survey in communities in South Africa that have shown opposition to and support for mining.
