Sammendrag
Barcarena, a city located in the Brazilian Amazon, was a small town until the 1970 s, but a massive aluminium production plant was built in the region in the 1980 s and the alumina and primary aluminium plants were responsible for a drastic economic shift from agriculture to industry. The Brazilian company Vale was the major shareholder of the production chain until 2011, when it sold its shares to Norwegian Hydro. The plants caused serious environmental problems, while not contributing sufficiently to the socio-economic development of local people. Following a serious environmental accident in Barcarena, the local prosecutor in charge demanded compensation to be paid partly in the form of capacity building of the local communities. The purpose of this explanatory case study is to understand how this came about, and what was the effect on the power of local communities, as stakeholders, to gain voice and influence. In order to support my analysis, this study uses Stakeholder Theory and Corporate Social Responsibility literature to establish a conceptual framework. The primary data gathered during fieldwork in Brazil was collected through qualitative methods, such as elite interviews with NGOs, Hydro and municipal government and semi structured interviews with community leaders.