South Africa's Chernobyl?

Abstract

A key tactic of residual governance is to compartmentalize contamination sources. But people experience contaminants simultaneously, not separately or sequentially. At the informal settlement of Tudor Shaft, situated atop the remains of a uranium mine, radioactive contamination became a key flashpoint—so much so that proponents of residual governance thought they could limit themselves to addressing radioactivity. But residuality at Tudor Shaft extended well beyond radiation, enmeshing a wide range of contamination and governance dilemmas that included housing and relocation, access to services, and more. Combating their own residual status required residents and their allies to address all possible governance scales: municipal, provincial, urban, national, and international. The struggle of this community offers a microcosm of the work required to overcome residual governance: not just in Gauteng or South Africa, but in struggles for environmental justice around the world.