loggers’ (2010: 69). Significantly, a number ofthese suggestions may challenge typical viewson external capacities for facilitating peace. Forexample, perhaps the most striking and, to mymind, most compelling suggestion for helpingconsolidate peace in Bougainville is the argu-ment for an international discretionary fund freefrom typical constraints such that a ‘foreignambassador in Papua New Guinea could go to[administrators of the fund] and say simply,“Please buy Sister Lorraine a car and give her aliving allowance”’ to add to capacity for ‘out-standing individuals to lead peace from thebottom up’ (2011: 117).

It is these suggestions that constitute the mainvalue of these texts. The other major contribu-tion these texts make is that they constitute arebalancing act – that is, they identify anddiscuss both local and international contribu-tions to peace, rather than focusing on oneor the other. For example, they point out thevalue of involvement for external actors, notinghow Australian and New Zealand personneldeployed to Bougainville learned and grewfrom their experiences there (2011: 129–130).These two texts are valuable contributions to theconflict resolution, peace studies or securitystudies literature in and of themselves. They arewritten in an accessible manner and will berelevant to government and non-governmentpractitioners, students and academics working,studying or researching either in these coun-tries or in the broader fields of Pacific studies,conflict resolution, peace studies and securitystudies. Yet the best may yet be to come as thesebooks contribute to a much broader project thatpromises fascinating and potentially illuminat-ing results. Scholars and peace, security anddevelopment practitioners can look forward toseeing what else emerges from the project as awhole.

Reviewer: B.K. Greener, Massey University,Palmerston North, New Zealand.Email: B.Greener@massey.ac.nz

Shifting the gender, mining and livelihoodsterrainLahiri-Dutt, Kuntala (ed.) (2011) Genderingthe Field: Towards Sustainable Livelihoods forMining Communities. Canberra: ANU E Press,

230 pp., $24.95, pbk, ISBN: 9781921862168,ISBN: 9781921862175 (Online).

Gendering the Field is an important collectionof articles on gender and development issues inthe mining context, covering a broad range ofviews, from vital Asia-Pacific geographies. Thetext resituates connections between gender,livelihoods and mining, through groundedresearch by leading thinkers. In doing so, thecomplexity of spaces that mines inhabit, includ-ing the varying scales and effects of miningactivity, becomes apparent.

The unifying theme throughout the articlesstems from the contributors’ shared interest inimproving gender equity, and how this mayaffect sustainability of livelihoods. That link isclearer in some articles than others, as to beexpected given the multiple authors and theirrespective research interests and backgrounds.However, such diversity helps provide genu-inely distinctive views on matters that are else-where frequently stereotyped. For instance, thepossible negative impact of mining on womenin communities is oft portrayed as dichotomous:women are either victims of development astheir country is decimated, or are unable toparticipate in employment/negotiations withmining companies to accrue potential commu-nity benefits. An example of where women ini-tiate and gain benefit from mining, despiteexclusion from large-scale mining, is found inPurejvav’s paper on artisanal and small-scalemining in Mongolia. Here, women are able topursue livelihood options that fit their needs,albeit to a limited extent.

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt’s introduction synthesisesthe motivation behind the text – a workshop in2008 on gender, mining and livelihoods at theAustralian National University – and is an excel-lent overview for the articles that follow. Sheadvocates a gender policy in mining companiesas an instrument to better gender equity, hopingit will overturn the gender invisibility that isnearly ubiquitous in this industry. This blindnessexists without regard to the evident genderdiversity within mines and their communities, areality exposed by the ensuing papers.

Challenging the notion of women as alwaysvictim or heroine in the mining sphere is PetraMahy’s Sex work and Livelihoods: Beyond the‘Negative Impacts on Women’ in Indonesian

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Mining. Mahy’s research is based in KaltimPrima Coal mine, a large-scale venture, andlooks at gender relations through a critical lens.While Mahy is careful to point out that negativeimpacts certainly do exist for women doing sexwork – for example, this group has higher ratesof HIV infections – women also deploy agencyin pursuing this source of income. It can supporta livelihood and offer freedom from other morerestrictive and dependent positions.

Gender disparity concerns arise for activistsand academics alike when looking at negotia-tion processes between stakeholders and miningcompanies. O’Faircheallaigh’s review, entitledIndigenous Women and Mining AgreementNegotiations: Australia and Canada, addressessimplistic assertions that women do not have avoice in this space. He does so by describingcases of where they have successfully partici-pated and strengthened outcomes for communi-ties. A key exemplar comes from the northernAustralia context of the Argyle ParticipationAgreement between local Traditional Ownersand Rio Tinto. In this part of the Kimberley,community leaders were often women, whoobtained tangible benefits for their people.Indeed, the achieving of a ‘No means no’ policyin negotiations is attributed to the womeninvolved in negotiations. If the communitydecided a particular site should not be mined,then it was left alone, and the company wouldnot seek Ministerial permission to overturn theveto. O’Faircheallaigh does state the difficulty inknowing some details of agreement makingsince they are private: an observation that couldhave been expanded as this defines most miningnegotiations.

Looking at another dimension of indigeneityand gender in mining, the dual disadvantagethat can derive from being female and indig-enous is unpacked by Joni Parmenter in Experi-ences of Indigenous Women in the AustralianMining Industry. The analysis of indigenouswomen workers at Century Mine in the Gulf ofCarpentaria looks at the enabling elements ofsuch work, as well as its concurrent constraints.Parmenter depicts the challenges for womenwithin a masculine dominated environment,and how being indigenous forms another,perhaps greater, difference between themselvesand the mainstream workers. The double minor-ity positioning reminds me of the subaltern

theory that Spivak expounded, which conse-quently reframed development analyses. I amsurprised that this body of literature is notaddressed here, but, having said that, Parmenterdoes identify the variety of conditions for femaleemployees vis-à-vis the mine, thus demonstrat-ing the value in close analysis.

Overall, I highly recommend the text, for itsrigour and acuity, on a subject of broad signi-ficance to readers in the discipline of deve-lopment studies and beyond. Indeed, the indi-vidual chapters combine to form a scholarlycontribution that shifts debate from whethermining is sustainable in and of itself, to whetherit can sustain all livelihoods with which itintersects.

Reviewer: Jessica McLean, Australian MekongResource Centre, School of Geosciences, Uni-versity of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.Email: jessica.mclean@sydney.edu.au

Sipping the broth of migrant experience inthe Asia PacificWong, Tai-Chee and Jonathan Rigg (eds.) (2011)Asian Cities, Migrant Labour and ContestedSpaces. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, xvi, 295 pp.,£75.00, ISBN13: 978-0-415-56448-9 hbk,ISBN13: 978-0-203-84495-3 ebk.

As a most welcome further addition within thedistinctive Routledge Contemporary Asia Series,this edited volume details the varying complex-ity of the migrant experience within contempo-rary development discourse. In so doing, thebook highlights the tension between a processconsidered to be important, inevitable andbroadly desirable at the international level butfraught with potential conflict at the social leveland discrimination, exploitation and isolationat the individual level. The Asia Pacific focusof the book, with examples drawn from theASEAN countries, together with China, Japanand Korea, rather belies its broader title ‘AsianCities’ with approximately half the case studiesfocusing upon the Chinese migrant experienceboth at home and abroad.

The book is organised into three parts, Part 1dealing with theoretical approaches, Part 2 withthe international migration dimension and Part3 with domestic migration. The contributors

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