Claims from below: platinum and the politics of land in the Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela traditional authority area

Abstract

Drawing on a detailed study of three village-level disputes in the Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela traditional authority area, this article explores how intensifying land struggles on the platinum belt around Rustenburg are being mediated through conflicts over group boundaries and identities, and how this in turn is articulating a potentially new yet contradictory rural class politics. In a context where chiefly authorities are themselves becoming major shareholders in local mining operations, the burning question is whether the ‘tribe’ should be treated as the only legitimate African land-holding unit, or whether the collective ownership of mineralised land should reside in smaller socio-political groups, typically claiming decent from its original buyers. The article finds that while contested constructions of rural ‘community’ are emerging as a significant means of defending or advancing popular claims over landed resources, these corporate forms of organisation are simultaneously riven by gender, generational and other social divisions, and are prone to replicating the tribalist logics they seek to challenge. The attempt to establish private property rights through more exclusionary group definitions may therefore also act as an equally divisive force against those labelled ‘outsiders’, not least migrant mineworkers.

[Des revendications d'en bas : le platine et les politiques foncières dans la zone traditionnelle de Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela.] En se basant sur une étude détaillée de trois conflits au niveau de villages de la zone traditionnelle de Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela, cet article explore comment les luttes liées à l'intensification des terres dans la ceinture du platine autour de Rustenburg font l'objet d'une médiation à travers des conflits liés au frontières et aux identités, et comment ceci à son tour exprime une politique de classe nouvelle mais contradictoire dans le milieu rural. Dans un contexte où les autorités deviennent elles-mêmes des actionnaires importants dans les opérations locales minières, la question brûlante est de savoir si la tribu devrait être considérée comme la seule unité africaine de propriété foncière légitime, ou si la propriété collective des sols riches en minerais devrait résider dans des groupes socio-politiques plus petits, qui revendiquent typiquement une descendance des acheteurs originels. Selon l'article, alors que les constructions contestées de la « communauté » rurale émergent comme un moyen important de défendre ou avancer des revendications populaires liées aux ressources foncières, ces formes d'organisation entrepreneuriales sont déchirées de manière simultanée par des divisions de genre, générationnelles et sociales, et ont tendance à répliquer les logiques tribales qu'elles tentent de défier. La tentative d’établir des droits de propriété privée à travers des définitions de groupe plus restrictives pourrait par conséquent agir aussi comme une force qui crée des divisions vis-à-vis de ceux qui sont étiquetés « outsiders », notamment les mineurs migrants.

Keywords:

• platinum mining
• communal land
• traditional authority
• rural community
• class formation
• accumulation and dispossession

Mots-clés:

• exploitation minière de platine
• terre communales
• zone traditionnelle
• communauté rurale
• formation des classes
• accumulation et dépossession

Acknowledgements

Authorship of this article is fully collaborative. We thank Ray Bush, Liam Campling, Dunbar Moodie and Leo Zeilig for their constructive comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. We also thank Wendy Phillips for the map.

Funding

The research was generously funded by the Human Rights and Governance Programme of the Ford Foundation through the Mining and Rural Transformation in Southern Africa (MARTISA) project at the Society, Work and Development Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, grant number 0120-6086.

Notes on contributors

Gavin Capps is a senior researcher and leads the Mining and Rural Transformation in Southern Africa (MARTISA) project at the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Email: [email protected]

Sonwabile Mnwana is a researcher in the MARTISA project, Society, Work and Development Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Email: [email protected]

Established by SWOP in 2013, the MARTISA project investigates the impact of new mining activity on evolving forms and relations of communal land, traditional authority and local community in mineral-rich rural areas of Southern Africa. Its current focus is on the former homeland areas of the South African platinum belt.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The notion of the ‘tribal-title-trust regime’ was first developed by Capps (2010) in relation to the Bafokeng chiefdom. Manson (2012, 3; 2013) subsequently demonstrated its relevance to ‘all traditional polities’ in the Rustenburg region – including Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela – though somewhat confused the terminology. Full references for the historical account that follows can be found in Capps (2010, 153–186).

2 The benefits of these arrangements for the mining industry are illustrated by a celebrated case between Gencor's Impala Platinum and the Bafokeng chieftaincy over the control of mineralised land registered to the latter in terms of the tribal-trust regime. Capps (2012a, 71–72) offers a brief summary; Manson and Mbenga (2003) is a more detailed if one-sided account from the perspective of the Bafokeng chieftaincy.

3 This and the remainder of this section draws on and extends the analysis presented in Capps (2012b).

4 In its original iteration, Manson (2012) surveyed five traditional authority areas around Rustenburg, but this was reduced to three in the published version (Manson 2013). Although valuable in terms of breadth, both versions are limited by their reliance on secondary sources. For a more detailed comparative analysis, based on intensive fieldwork in the Bafokeng and Bakgatla areas, see Mnwana (2012).

5 The Union operation or section is one of Amplatś mining complexes.

6 For an overview of these transactions see the Appendix in Mnwana and Capps (2015).

7 The research was conducted under the auspices of the Mining and Rural Transformation in Southern Africa (MARTISA) project of the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witswatersrand. It was led by Sonwabile Mnwana, with the assistance of Stanley Malindi and Gregory Maxaulane, and built on his earlier PhD research in the Bakgatla area (Mnwana 2012). The findings are reported in Mnwana and Capps (2015), and full references for the village studies that follow can be found there.

8 The following account primarily draws on a 2010 submission to the government by the leadership of this faction as well as interviews with its key members during fieldwork. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are drawn from this written source. See ‘Submission by Mrs Mary Mokgaetsi Pilane and Mr Mmothi Pilane of Bakgatla-baKautlwale to Rural Development Portfolio Committee on the Repeal of the Black Authorities Act, 21 July 2010’.

9 Pilane and Another v Pilane and Another (263/2010), (30 June 2011), para 21.

10 Pilane and Another v Pilane and Another (CCT 46/12), (28 February 2013), para 70.