ARCTIC Implementing the Next Economy in a Unified Context: A Case Study of the Paddle Prairie Mall Corporation

• Main Authors: Michael Robinson, Elmer Ghostkeeper
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1988
• Subjects: Arctic; Indian; Paddle Prairie; inuit; Metis
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.585.5916; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic41-3-173.pdf

(Robinson and Ghostkeeper, 1987: 138-144) by the authors proposed a model for community-based native business development based upon the fusing of community culture with corporate culture in the information and service economy. This model has now been implemented by a Metis entrepreneur in the northern Alberta settlement of Paddle Prairie and is evaluated using the “unified approach ” to economic development described by Higgins and Higgins (1979). In this way the new venture’s performance is assessed against the following criteria: employment generation, income creation, contribution to regional ecological harmony and maximization f cultural enrichment. It is concluded that the Paddle Prairie Mall Corporation is a practical demonstration of the unified approach in Canada’s mid-North and that the “M tis way of doing things, ” born of the bush economy, is an indigenous Canadian variant of the unified approach that acknowledges the importance of sociocultural and ecological factors in development planning. It remains to be seen whether or not the Metis way of doing things has an Inuit or Indian analogue and to what degree the next economy model can be equally well applied in non-Metis native communities. Key words: community-based economic development, unified development, bush and next (information and service) economies, Metis, case study RÉSUMÉ. Dans leur récent article intitulé <<Native and Local Economies: A Consideration of Economic Evolution and the Next Economyn (<<Les économies indigbne et locale: Aspects de I’bvolution économique et de la prochaine économie>>, Robinson et Ghostkeeper, 1987, p. 138-144), les auteurs offraient un modLle de développement de l’entreprise indigbne au sein de la communauté, développement reposant sur la fusion de la culture de