Mineral wealth – ‘in the name of morafe’? Community control in South Africa's ‘Platinum Valley’

Abstract

Direct control of mineral resource wealth by communities in resource-endowed regions is advocated as a panacea to conflict and fundamental towards attainment of self-determination and local autonomy. Based on the study conducted in Royal Bafokeng and Bakgatla Ba Kgafela, the two prominent, platinum-rich traditional communities in South Africa's North West Province, this article reveals that, although mineral wealth in South Africa's platinum-endowed communities such as Royal Bafokeng is reportedly distributed ‘in the name of morafe’ (‘community’ in Setswana), inadequate participation produces polarised local priorities and tensions at the grassroots level. Community control of mineral wealth is thus likely to paradoxically generate conflict and exclusion at the traditional community level, particularly in contexts where participation in mineral wealth-engendered community development is championed by traditional leaders through customary-derived spaces of local engagement.

Keywords:

• resource control
• traditional leaders
• participation
• mineral wealth
• community development

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge and thank the National Research Foundation Research Chair in Land Reform and Democracy at the University of Cape Town, which made this work possible to accomplish through its generous financial support.

Notes

²‘Community’ in this context refers to residents within territorial boundaries of the study sites.

³Corporate social responsibility in this context refers to the commitment by the mine to take the responsibility of practising socially responsible business practices towards the local communities.

⁴Hereditary headmen who inherit this position from their fathers; singular, kgosana.

⁵In the RBN documents, ‘Master Plan’ is written as ‘Masterplan’.