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Paper short abstract:

Drawing on Burawoy (1985)'s thesis, the paper argues that manufacturing of consent in South Africa's platinum mining industry goes beyond the workplace. The paper identifies a new critical form of consent forged between mining capital and local communities through unemployment forums.

Paper long abstract:

The transition to democracy and advance towards a neoliberal form of capitalism has seen a decline in the traditional recruitment patterns in South Africa's mining sector. The old patterns tied to the migrant labour system are still present but waning. New institutions linked to a reconfiguration of the patterns of mining labour supply are emerging. These changes are linked to the shift in the employer strategy and have been examined by a number of studies from that perspective. Many of these studies do not explore beyond capital strategy and how these patterns may shift through collective agency drawn beyond the employment relationship. This paper closes this gap by focusing on how local communities' collective agency may inform mining capital recruitment patterns. We present this drawing from an ethnographic study of Rustenburg platinum belt recruitment regime which we argue is a new form of manufacturing consent outside the employment relationship. Drawing from Burawoy (1985) thesis, the paper argues that consent for the mining capital in the post-apartheid dispensation may not only be forged between capital, workers and their trade unions. We identify a new critical form of consent forged between mining capital and the local community through unemployment forums. These are emerging in the platinum belt as new spaces for the manufacturing of consent between mining capital and the local communities. We argue that consent manufactured by capital and unions must be articulated to that forged between capital and the community for it to be sustainable.