SOCIAL IMPACT RESEARCH - INTEGRATING THE TECHNICAL, POLITICAL, AND PLANNING PARADIGMS

In recent years, the impact assessment literature has established the need to develop appropriate methods for use within the political parad igm of SIA. However, practitioners must remain mindful of the need to retain an essential core of technical SIA research, and find ways of i ntegrating this with the participatory and political components of the process, Research methods to integrate SLA with planning are equally necessary. A controversial mining proposal in Australia's Northern Ter ritory, contested by mining, conservation and Aboriginal interests, pr ovided the opportunity to test a new SIA method to combine the use of participatory/political and technical procedures and to integrate thes e two theoretical paradigms with a planning approach based on the pote ntial for bargaining and negotiation. The method is detailed and asses sed to provide a practical framework within which SIA practitioners ca n successfully achieve these ends.