Hunting and gathering continues to constitute specific forms of social and cultural organisation, against the backdrop of state and economy driven notions of ‘development’ and expanding patterns of extractive industries. This issue of the Austrian Journal of Development Studies collects perspectives, from a variety of continents, on changing cultures and social practices that have emerged over the last century in hunter-gatherer societies. Colonisation and rapid industrialisation have connected remote places to global centres, and new relations – in a broad variety of forms – between local communities, corporations and the state have emerged. Some of the contributions in the issue show the conflicting nature of such entanglements – in particular the transcript of a speech by Nick Kelesau, a local activist opposing the construction of a hydrodam in Borneo.