Paper short abstract:

I argue that the imagination and construction of a mega infrastructure project in Lephalale, a South African town, inspired a scramble for land that highlights the limits of land use policies in an area characterized by property speculation and extractivism as the two main modes of accumulation.

Paper long abstract:

Mega infrastructure projects, especially in Africa, have come to define national developmental ideology and global policy agendas (Enna and Bersaglio, 2020: 103). These projects have taken various forms from large energy infrastructures to smart cities, and have been positioned as necessary for addressing uneven development. In countries where the extractive industry is the mainstay of the economy, these projects are largely linked to the industry in some form or another. For instance, in South Africa, where mining remains the largest contributor to the country’s GDP, a large proportion of infrastructure projects have focused on the exploitation of existing coal fields, tied to other infrastructure goals such as sustainable human settlements. As this paper demonstrates, the case of Medupi Coal Power station in Lephalale was positioned as one such project, promising not only the end of the electricity crisis but as well as positioning the town and region as an economic zone and a vision of a new post-apartheid city. This spurred interest from various actors who wanted a stake in the burgeoning town. I argue that the imagination and construction of the project inspired a scramble for land that highlights the limits of land use policies in an area characterized by property speculation and extractivism as the two main modes of accumulation.