Paper short abstract:

This paper studies processes of extraversion and resource extraction in South Africa’s platinum mining industry, where chiefs have become active mining agents. It analyzes the alliance between chieftaincy, politicians and business leaders, as well as resulting disputes with customary landholders.

Paper long abstract:

This paper studies the relationship between processes of extraversion and resource extraction in the platinum mining industry of South Africa. Such mining mostly takes place on land inhabited by “traditional” communities, governed by a combination of state and customary law and governance institutions. Mining companies often treat traditional leaders as the representatives of such communities, with the power to make decisions regarding communal lands. Over time, chiefs have become active mining agents, concluding deals with (foreign) mining companies ostensibly on behalf of their communities. Such mining deals are the object of heavy contestation, with ‘mine-hosting’ communities pitted against senior traditional leaders, large-scale mining companies and politicians. At the core of these contestations are issues of representation and decision-making power in traditional communities. Recent laws centralize control over mineral income into the hands of small elite of politicians, wealthy businessmen and chiefs, and facilitate the ‘corporatization of chieftaincy’. This legal framework itself is an object of fierce contestation in both legislative and judicial arenas, with the government, the traditional leadership lobby and mining companies all invested in sustaining as much uncertainty as possible regarding land rights of customary landholders. The deliberately reconstituted ambiguity around rural land rights and powers of authority provides an important context for understanding processes of extraversion and struggles over mining at the community level.