Howitt, RJolly, Dyanna2023-12-072023-10-242024-070011-3921W3YL7 (isidoc)https://hdl.handle.net/10182/16674Published versionSocial Impact Assessment’s incorporation into neoliberal management systems did not enhance their capacity to actually respond to social impacts. Efforts to integrate ‘social’ and ‘environmental’ assessments largely assumed that Social Impact Assessment rightfully belonged to key practitioners (professionals, academics, and corporate and government decision-makers). This article advocates rethinking ontological foundations for a different sort of Social Impact Assessment. It starts from an understanding that the social domain is always and inescapably connected across scales from the microbial, through the global to the cosmological. Building from experience working with Indigenous peoples, it recognizes that although ontological separation of social, environmental and other categories of impact assessment may well facilitate project approval, it also renders industrial systems deaf and blind to many of the most pressing risks facing coupled human and natural systems at multiple scales.pp.612-628en© 2023 The Authors.impact assessmentindigenous IAindigenous planningontologySIAJournal Article10.1177/001139212312031721461-7064ANZSRC::441001 Applied sociology, program evaluation and social impact assessmentANZSRC::441008 Sociology of cultureANZSRC::451907 Indigenous methodologiesANZSRC::460903 Information modelling, management and ontologiesANZSRC::451125 Te pāpātanga pāpori me te aromātai hōtaka o te Māori (Māori social impact and program evaluation)ANZSRC::4408 Political scienceANZSRC::4410 Sociologyhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Attribution