THE DISCOURSE OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE: CORPORATE IDENTITY IN THE MINING INDUSTRY

Corporate Social Responsibility is one of the buzz words of today's business world. While the ideas of sustainable businesses and ethical business operations are praiseworthy, the discourse in which such ideas is couched raises questions as to whether sustainability and business ethics are actual practices or discursive effects. This paper analyses the discourse of a few international mining corporations and it focuses on the construction of corporate identity, on the manufacturing of good will, and on the stylistic strategies used in corporate communications. By relying on the theoretical and methodological apparatus of critical discourse studies, the paper highlights the ultimately impersonal construction of responsibility and the myth of the good neighbour that corporations resort to.