The issue of whether Indigenous communities support or oppose energy or infrastructure projects is increasingly making headlines, both in Canada and elsewhere. A case study from the Philippines exemplifies the complex realities on the ground, well beyond a binary yes-or-no divide.Canada, like many other countries, has a turbulent history with the Indigenous communities living within its borders. In Québec, large dams and other energy projects are often at the centre of conflicts. Recently, the Innu community of Pessamit rejected an agreement negotiated between its band council and Hydro-Québec.Across the country, various Indigenous communities are also resisting projects by the mining industry, as well as the oil and gas sectors.They oppose the exploitation of their lands and point to the failure of governments and companies to fulfil their consultation obligations, as well as their tendency to negotiate bilaterally with individual communities rather than collectively.However, some communities do consent to certain projects on their ancestral lands, even though those lands are central to their cultural identity, territorial sovereignty and livelihoods. Understanding why can shed light on today’s debates.Complex dynamicsAs a PhD student in international business at HEC Montréal and a researcher affiliated with the Centre for International Research and Studies at Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM), my work focuses on forms of resistance to mining extractivism amid the global energy transition. Together with Dominique Caouette, holder of the Chair in Asian and Indo-Pacific Studies, and Dalia Aktouf, who holds a Master’s degree in Political Science from Université de Montréal, we examined the case of Agusan del Norte province in the Philippines.Our study, soon to be published in a special issue on Indigenous issues in the journal Les Cahiers du CIERA (Inter-University Centre for Indigenous Studies and Research), reveals complex dynamics. À lire aussi : Reconciliation or recolonization? What Canada can learn by looking abroad Internal tensions and power dynamicsIn the north on the island of Mindanao, an ancestral territory belonging to five Indigenous clans has been exploited by Agata Mining Ventures Inc for nickel extraction. Aktouf conducted 40 interviews there over several months with the various Mamanwa and Mamanwa-Manobo clans.Our study reveals the complexity of Indigenous communities’ political agency. They are not homogeneous groups, and they respond to mining in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways. As a result, their positions on mining projects are shaped by internal tensions, power dynamics, compromises and forms of ambivalent engagement.With Spanish colonization in the Philippines in the 16th century, Indigenous Peoples experienced significant territorial dispossession, along with political and economic marginalisation. Over the course of the 20th century, they gradually won legal recognition from the state. The cornerstone of that recognition is the Indigenous People Rights Act of 1997, or IPRA, which recognizes them as the archipelago’s original inhabitants and gives them the opportunity to obtain land rights.Yet even as IPRA recognizes these rights, it also perpetuates forms of state control: it folds these territories into a capitalist, extractive development model governed by the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 while also integrating these communities into state governance structures that limit their autonomy.Institutional neglect and contemptThis history of political and economic marginalization helps explain why Indigenous communities in the Philippines might value alternative forms of recognition, including those offered by mining companies.The clans’ accounts reveal a history marked by territorial insecurity, dispossession and symbolic as well as physical violence. This marginalization shapes how Indigenous communities see themselves and external entities, including government authorities and mining companies. During the interviews, communities described a sense of abandonment and institutional contempt.For these communities, ancestral territory is an existential matter, one that goes far beyond legal categories. As one clan chief interviewed for our study put it: “This land is our hospital, because it is where we can find medicinal plants. It is also a market, because it is where we can find food.”The state’s failure to recognize ancestral territories, therefore, is not just a legal or economic injustice — it’s a denial of these communities’ social, cultural and political existence.This marginalization — symbolic, political, and territorial — has shaped a deeply rooted quest for recognition, one that seeks dignity, visibility and political legitimacy.Selective and conditional recognitionIn this context, the mining sector paradoxically emerges as one of the few spaces where Indigenous identity and land rights are institutionally recognized. Mining companies are required to carry out a “Free, Prior, and Informed Consent” process. Yet this political recognition remains limited and asymmetrical: it opens up space for participation without challenging existing power structures, even as it fosters a sense of recognition against a backdrop of historical invisibility.Furthermore, recognition of ancestral lands does not stand in opposition to mining; the two are intertwined. In Agusan del Norte, the legal recognition of ancestral lands unfolded alongside the growth of mining activity. Environmental and social impact assessment processes also played a part.One leader interviewed for our study explains that these assessments involved consultations within each clan, allowing elements of local knowledge to make their way into the formal agreements signed with the company and authorities. Several members directly link the mine’s arrival to a process of territorial and cultural recognition. As one fisherman put it:“Our traditions were slowly dying out, but when mining arrived, they began to come back to life.”Cultural recognition also shows up in the promotion of Indigenous identity, support — financial and otherwise — for certain practices and partial recognition of sacred sites. Still, it remains selective and conditional, contingent on its compatibility with mining operations.Economic recognition, meanwhile, is a central dimension in its own right, going beyond mere monetary compensation to reshape communities’ social status. Many describe mining royalties as having improved their living conditions.Ambivalent consentHowever, the collected accounts suggest that this recognition is seen as incomplete, conditional and occasionally opportunistic.These tensions reveal recognition’s ambiguous nature. It can be seen as a source of symbolic redress for communities. At the same time, it also helps to stabilize and legitimize mining on ancestral lands.Despite being included in certain mechanisms tied to the mining project, communities remain invisible in national narratives of mining “success.” This recognition, therefore, appears selective, defined by external criteria rather than by the communities themselves.The case of Agusan del Norte reveals the complex dynamic just described, unfolding in four stages: historical marginalization that produces a quest for recognition outside the state; the emergence of mining companies as providers of what we call “extractive recognition;” the limits and contradictions of that recognition and, finally, the production of ambivalent consent.This concept of extractive recognition allows us to move beyond binary readings of Indigenous consent limited to either full acceptance or passive coercion. It sheds light on issues right here in Canada, at a time of mining revival linked to the energy transition.This raises the question of what genuine consultation mechanisms would look like, ones that account for the power dynamics within Indigenous communities themselves. The consent process should also be understood within its historical context: one of dispossession and marginalization of Indigenous Peoples by the state.Dominique Caouette received funding from SSHRC (the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada).Margaux Maurel ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.