SummaryThe concept of geographical scale, despite being one of geography's foundational concepts, has been undertheorized compared to other core concepts such as environment, space and place. Two aspects of the concept of geographical scale (size and level) are relatively well recognized. A third aspect (scale as relation) is not. In this exploratory paper, the implications of the metaphors conventionally used to think and write about scale are considered, and some musical metaphors of geographical scale are used to sketch out the importance of scale as a relation.

Indigenous peoples live in challenging environments and engage in complex negotiations to access their rights. Yet research on their social mobilization often stereotypes them as victims of environmental management. We review three debates through which human geographers are beginning to engage more meaningfully with Indigenous environmentalism: the political ecology of neoliberalism; deliberation within claims settlement; and propertization of socio-ecological relations. A movement away from conflating Indigenous with local is evident in those debates, producing recognition of diversity in Indigenous motivations but also a range of challenges to geographical practice.

This book offers students and practitioners a sophisticated and convincing framework for rethinking the usual approaches to resource management. It uses case studies to argue that professional resource managers do not take responsibility for the social and environmental consequences of their decisions on the often vulnerable indigenous communities they affect. It also discusses the invisibility of indigenous people' values and knowledge within traditional resource management. It offers a new approach to social impact assessment methods which are more participatory and empowering. The book employs a range of case studies from Australia, North America and Norway.

Working with Indigenous peoples has stretched geographers’ presumptions about appropriate modes of engagement and representation. Early feminist geography prompted methodological experimentation that exercised significant and lasting influence on the discipline. The politics of working with Indigenous peoples yields similarly significant insights about research leadership and methodological choices that are now recognized more widely. We juxtapose the prevailing ethnographic and collaborative approaches to researching Indigenous peoples against Indigenes’ preference for leading research into their lives. Ethical concerns about recent geographical research suggest a need to reconceptualize participation, action and representation.