| Abstrakt: |
Mining operations in North West Province, South Africa, are contributing to ongoing social, economic, political, environmental and related impacts on nearby communities. Mining houses make use of largely expensive and highly specialized processes of extracting minerals while closely guarding relevant knowledge and information from the general public and related institutions. The article employs the theories of resource curse, accumulation by dispossession and radical materialism, whose concepts elucidate the inextricable links between the actions of states, private entities, and civil society in the dynamics of resource abundance, resource-laden conflict, and human rights abuses. The article analyses several impacts, including tense trade union rivalries with serious political implications at both provincial and national levels of politics; provincial political contestation with equally strong grassroots-focused alliances, and a host of socio-economic related service delivery challenges. The above calls for collective sectoral engagement on the dichotomy of creating billionaires who are juxtaposed with people who are living in abject poverty in communities surrounding the mines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
