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That Which Doesn’t Break Us: Identity Work by Local Indigenous ‘Stakeholders’

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Abstract

This article describes a case study on the Machiguenga, a remote Indigenous tribe affected by the Camisea Gas Project in the Peru. We introduce the anthropological concept of ‘glocalization’ and integrate this with organizational knowledge of ‘identity work’. Our findings demonstrate that identity work is a multi-faceted and boundary spanning process that significantly affects stakeholder relations and contributes to conflict between local communities and oil and gas companies. Indigenous identity can be both threatened and strengthened in response to natural gas development and is related to how individuals, communities and the Machiguenga (as a collective) engage in identity work. We also discuss broader implications for management ethics, including a discussion of how Indigenous self-identify processes create a challenge for stakeholder theory.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Just Eve, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Eveline Bruijn

  2. Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR , Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Gail Whiteman

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  1. Eveline Bruijn
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  2. Gail Whiteman
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Correspondence to Gail Whiteman.

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Bruijn, E., Whiteman, G. That Which Doesn’t Break Us: Identity Work by Local Indigenous ‘Stakeholders’. J Bus Ethics 96, 479–495 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0479-0

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