MINING CORPORATIONS’ PSYCHOSOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMPACT ON LOCAL COMMUNITIES: THE CASE OF NORTH WEST PROVINCE MINING COMPLEX
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/0256-8845/672Abstract
Mining operations in the North West province in particular are contributing to ongoing social, economic, political, environmental and related impacts on the communities. This is within the context of largely expensive and highly specialized process of extracting the minerals while guarding closely relevant knowledge and information from the people, communities 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 body polity; provincial political contestation with equally strong grassroots focused alliances; and a host of socio-economic service deliveries. The above calls for collective sectoral engagement on the dichotomy of creating billionaires that are juxtaposed against people who are living in abject poverty in surrounding mining communities.
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Accepted 2015-11-26
Published 2015-11-26
