'The Richest Tribe in Africa': Platinum-Mining and the Bafokeng in South Africa's North West Province, 1965-1999*

Manson, Andrew; Mbenga, Bernard

doi:10.1080/0305707032000060598

Cited by 34 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…3 A great deal of the land mined in the Rustenburg area is owned by the Bafokeng Nation, who not only receive substantial royalties from the companies who mine platinum on Bafokeng land but, through their privately owned company Royal Bafokeng Holdings, have engaged in joint ventures with them. As a result of the enormous revenues from platinum, the Bafokeng have become known colloquially as 'the richest tribe in Africa' (Manson and Mbenga 2003). The disparity of wealth and infrastructure development between the areas under the Royal Bafokeng Administration (in particular the city of Phokeng) and other areas of the RLM, combined with the RBA's (unofficial) policy of providing educational bursaries, jobs and development support exclusively to Bafokeng citizens, has created additional tensions to which I shall return later.…”

Section: Platinum Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

Platinum City and the New South African Dream

Rajak¹

2012

Africa

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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.

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Section: Platinum Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

Platinum City and the New South African Dream

Rajak¹

2012

Africa

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“…9 On the one hand, the Bafokeng people in the North West Province, where the platinum belt is located, fought for decades in the streets and in the courts over their share of mineral royalties from Impala Platinum and the apartheid government. The land concessions for mining date back to the mid-1960s, and the disputes with Impala over the distribution of royalties were finally settled in February 1999 (Manson & Mbenga 2003). With this revenue, the Bafokeng people have invested in roads, shops, schools, and clinics (Maykuth 2001).…”

Section: Demanding Rights and Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With this revenue, the Bafokeng people have invested in roads, shops, schools, and clinics (Maykuth 2001). Their success in gaining control over platinum resources, in conjunction with the platinum boom in the mid-1990s, helped to characterize the Bafokeng people as “the richest tribe in Africa” (Manson & Mbenga 2003). The Bafokeng’s story is also seen as a model of resource governance that other communities affected by extraction could seek to emulate (Cook 2013; Herskovitz 2012).…”

Section: Demanding Rights and Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mineral Wealth and Protest in Sub-Saharan Africa

Arce¹,

Miller²

2016

Afr. stud. rev.

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Abstract:Challenging the scholarship on the relationship between natural resources and civil society, this article advances a framework that differentiates the various types of protests surrounding mineral extraction in sub-Saharan Africa and explains how this extraction encourages contentious activity. On the basis of protest event data from thirty-nine countries in SSA for the 1990–2006 period, as well as available survey data, the article provides confirming evidence that mineral wealth increases protest activity.

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“…The sense that the kgosi and the royal family should ensure the survival of the people persists among the Bafokeng. The fact that the community is often called “the richest tribe in Africa” (Manson and Mbenga ) stands in contrast to the fact that about half of the community's households describe themselves as “poor” or “very poor” (RBA ). But rather than push for the right to claim their share of the community's wealth in cash, most Bafokeng adhere strongly to the paternalistic model by which their long‐term survival and needs will be catered for by the kgosi and his administration.…”

Section: South Africa 2003mentioning

confidence: 99%

Performing Royalty in Contemporary Africa

Cook

Hardin

2013

Cultural Anthropology

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Sovereignty and governance in contemporary Africa are hotly contested issues with important-even dire-consequences for all those interested in the continent's markets, resources, people, and welfare. This article focuses not on questions of how authority is assigned or removed, but on how it is shaped, worn, and performed for diverse audiences, particularly in the arena of "traditional governance." To do so, we juxtapose two ritual celebrations, in two distinct monarchies in southern Africa, to show contemporary traditional leaders engaged in cultural displays in their own contexts, and in contrast with each other's. First, we describe the formal enthronement of Kgosi (or King, as most Bafokeng translate it) Leruo Molotlegi of the Bafokeng Nation in South Africa in August 2003. We then follow Kgosi Leruo one year later, literally and ethnographically, on an official visit to King Mswati III of Swaziland for the traditional Reed Dance ceremony (umhlanga). Here, the Bafokeng "ethnic corporation" meets Africa's last absolute monarchy in a juxtaposition of styles, symbols, and strategies that illuminates the difference between an aesthetic of defiant African alterity and an Afromodern capitalist cosmopolitanism.In chronicling the meeting of these two men, whose roles as royals have developed under very different political and economic circumstances, we examine their disparate choices for self-presentation and political ceremony in order to show

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'The Richest Tribe in Africa': Platinum-Mining and the Bafokeng in South Africa's North West Province, 1965-1999*

Cited by 34 publications

References 0 publications

Platinum City and the New South African Dream

Platinum City and the New South African Dream

Mineral Wealth and Protest in Sub-Saharan Africa

Performing Royalty in Contemporary Africa

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