Land Mines

Abstract

Mine lands are omnipresent in South Africa's endless debates about land reform. Asbestos, platinum, chromium, iron: all of South Africa's mines have toxic afterlives. Their leakages, debris, and emanations continue to time-bomb the future. In Gauteng, planners, policy makers, and activists see the land under the tailings piles as prime real estate, ripe for development: the key to making the city whole. This puts remediation at the center of debates about urban planning. As mines shut down, revolving doors spin mine officials and engineers into remediation consulting firms that profit from the harms wreaked by their own former employers, turning many industry consultants into agents of the new apartheid. Their resources vastly exceed those of the communities, artists, activists, and social scientists who seek to remediate the spatial injustices of apartheid.