Platinum City and the New South African Dream

Abstract

Much has been written about the persistence of economic apartheid, inscribed in the geography of South Africa's cities, producing spatial configurations that are reminiscent of the old order of segregation while simultaneously embodying the particular inequities and divisions of the new neo-liberal order (Turok 2001; Harrison 2006). Through an ethnographic study of Rustenburg, the urban hub of South Africa's platinum belt (once labelled the ‘fastest growing city in Africa’ after Cairo), I explore how the failure of urban integration maps onto the failure of the promise of market inclusion. What is particular about mid-range towns such as Rustenburg is that the opportunities of ‘empowerment through enterprise’ are seen, or believed, to be all the more attainable than in large cities. Here the extended supply chains of the mining industry and the expanding secondary economy appear to offer limitless possibilities to share in the boons of the platinum boom. Yet as this account shows, the disjuncture and friction between corporate authority and local government have given rise to increasing fragmentation and exclusion, as only a very few are able to grasp the long-anticipated rewards of the new South African dream.

Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives as Social Innovation for Governance and Practice: A Review of Responsible Mining Initiatives

“…The findings further underlined that the MSIs deliver this service especially where state governance is weak or absent and can, thus, be seen as a valuable governance approach for social innovations. This is in line with existing literature on responsible mining that often focuses on failed states and missing governance [4,5,79].…”

“…The analysis of MSIs for responsible mining as social innovation reaches wide into neighboring fields of research and practice such as the business domains of procurement and supply chain management [3,5,43,79] but also political economy [4,39,40] or the field of environmental science and technology [8,11]. This study takes the lens of social innovation to unearth the real-world application of responsible mining practices that can help to alleviate the welfare of the population and societies in mining areas [33].…”

Eureka and beyond: mining's impact on African urbanisation

“…Obviously, mining attracts migrants with the expectation of more remunerative livelihood opportunities, but the question of how people move to, settle in and sustain a livelihood in the face of the roller coaster of global mineral markets remains largely unanswered (though see Rajak 2012;Walsh 2012). From recent observations of the current mining boom, settlement patterns of artisanal and large-scale mining differ temporally, spatially and infrastructurally.…”

The Role of Institutional Uncertainty for Social Sustainability of Companies and Supply Chains

“…The 2019 Brazil tailing dam tragedy, the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh and the 2012 Marikana mining strike in South Africa (SA) are prominent examples of ethical challenges in supply chains (SCs). Although regulations for preventing such tragedies were in place, they were not effective in these three cases (New York Times 2019; Huq and Stevenson 2018;Rajak 2012). Institutional voids, i.e.…”

“…At the same time, the mineral sector's and related SCs' social licenses to operate are at stake due to a perceived imbalance among unsustainability and the achieved development at the mine sites (Hofmann et al 2018;Mayes 2015). Economic development is all too often accompanied by social tensions due to enclave building, low working standards and workers' living standards (Silvestre 2015;Lodhia and Hess 2014;Rajak 2012). To counter these tensions, powerful sustainability institutions are needed to ensure ethical mineral supplies that enable a development impact in the sourcing region (Lodhia and Hess 2014;Solomon 2011).…”