Household and Network Analysis for Understanding Social Changes in Mining Development 1 Gerardo Castillo 2 The aim of this paper is to discuss the limits of the conventional Social Impact Assessment (SIA) approach, and propose the use of a Household and Network Analysis (HNA) for a better comprehension of resource development transformations within local communities and mining regions. In order to address this objective, the critically discusses some of the major limitations of the conventional SIA approach and presents the main features of the HNA as a complementary way for dealing with these shortcomings. It argues that HNA is especially suited to grasp an emic or local population’s perspective in the context of cumulative impacts. The paper provides examples from experiences of current large-scale mining in Peruvian Andes. There is no doubt that mining development leads to major social, economic, and cultural impacts in resource regions; especially among rural populations. These impacts could involve production and labor shifts, local inflation, changes in consumption patterns, migration, modification of residence styles, social mobility, or changes in power relations, including gender dimensions (Bainton 2010; Castillo & Soria; Damonte 2008; McMahon & Remy 2001; Ward & Strongman 2011; World Bank 2001; Zegarra, Orihuela & Paredes 2007). SIA is the standard tool adopted within the extractive industries to identify, measure and manage the effects of mining development on the social conditions of a population. SIA is intended to avoid or minimize negative impacts and to promote the positive ones (Becker & Vanclay 2006; Franks 2012; Vanclay 2003; Vanclay & Esteves 2011). Despite being a powerful methodology, SIA also presents significant limitations. In what follows, I briefly indicate some of these and discuss how a HNA could help to overcome these limitations.  Territory-focused. SIA methodology has been developed following environmental models. Usually, these models contemplate an external action (i.e. the construction of an open pit) in an accurately identifiable time and place and then predict the impacts that this 1 Paper presented at the 33 rd Conference of the International Association for Impact Assessment. Calgary, Canada, May 15 th 2013. The author would like to acknowledge Diana Arbelaez-Ruiz and Rebekah Ramsay for their fruitful comments and review of this paper. 2 Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining – The University of Queensland. g.castillo@uq.edu.edu