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This paper aims to explore the importance of meaningful participation for Indigenous peoples within the complex and highly political context of mining and mineral extraction. The aim is to consider the multi-dimensional nature of the mining context that takes into account the discursive landscape that frames the often disparate perspectives of corporate, state and Indigenous communities.

The paper is a conceptual offering that examines the complex environment within which “meaningful participation” between mining corporates and Indigenous communities operate.

This paper highlights the multi-dimensional nature of a proposed relationship between the mining corporates, the state and the Indigenous Māori community within New Zealand. The facilitation of “meaningful participation” requires that any negotiated agreement is undertaken within a framework of meaning that makes sense to the Indigenous community, in addition to the appropriate legislative and corporate initiatives to be in place.

The paper highlights the complex considerations that must be included in any form of negotiation between mining corporates and Indigenous peoples to achieve meaningful participation in the form that it was intended under international accords. While recognising the different contextual circumstance of Indigenous peoples around the world, this paper illustrates a pathway towards meaningful participation that takes into account economic, socio-cultural and environmental variables.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the utility of a pragmatist epistemology as a viable methodological avenue for addressing the challenges associated with the normative models of science that dominate organisational management. At the same time, theorisation of a paradigm grounded in a pragmatic epistemology is presented.

The paper seeks to explore the different assumptions guiding a pragmatist epistemology, based on the development of an alternative philosophic framework, such as an indigenous paradigm that draws its logic from a Māori worldview. In doing so, it counters the ideological tension created by the disjunction of applying an epistemological perspective that aligns with what we conceptualise as a mainstream Western view of knowledge creation and maintaining the integrity of taking an indigenous worldview.

In the paper, we argue that kaupapa Māori research, as an indigenous paradigm draws from a pragmatist epistemology, providing a platform for a culturally attuned response to mainstream organisational research.

The paper is of use to qualitative researchers, in and beyond indigenous contexts, as it grounded in a methodological approach that draws from a pragmatic epistemology offering insightful, more richly contextualised research avenues in organisation and management.