Overview
The last three decades have witnessed the decline of many of South African mining areas. By contrast, Rustenburg has over the same period experienced a massive expansion in investment, infrastructure and population fuelled by the platinum boom. As a result, the town became the global centre of platinum mining, a status that has become less certain since the Marikana Massacre in 2012. Rustenburg's population increased from just under 400,000 in 2001 to almost 550,000 in 2011. Alongside this influx of people, often migrant workers, there was pressure on mining firms to reduce the number of workers who resided in mining compounds from the colonial and apartheid eras. Many compounds were converted into apartments and single-quarters and mineworkers who opted out of mine housing were typically paid a living-out allowance to find alternative accommodation, often in informal settlements. At the time of the massacre of 34 mineworkers by the South African Police Service, 42% of Rustenburg's residents lived in such informal settlements, a shocking statistic when compared with the figure of 15% for South Africa as a whole. It could be argued that this combination of a mining boom and a lack of urban planning constitutes a major part of the explanation for continued social strife in Rustenburg.
Unlike South Africa's other mining areas such as the Witwatersrand and the Free State gold fields, literature dealing with mining in Rustenburg is relatively recent, starting out with an initial interest in corporate social responsibility and later focused on the violent events at Marikana (in addition to the articles in this volume, see for example Alexander, et al. 2012; Chinguno 2013a, 2013b; Hartford 2013; Rajak 2012). Our interest in this article is to use Rustenburg as a case study in order to explore spatial elements of the emerging post-apartheid order. We focus mainly on changing residential patterns of Rustenburg by revisiting the apartheid-era socio-spatial concepts of suburb, compound, township and homeland. At the one end, the town has seen the rise of gated communities for the rich and the upwardly mobile. At the other end, there is the mushrooming of informal settlements around the mines. Those in gated communities of various configurations use the logic of enclaving to insulate themselves from the constant threat of arbitrary violence that rules the lives of those who live in informal settlements. Between these two extremes are numerous forms of residential arrangements for different races and classes, including those for black mineworkers who were historically housed in single-sex compounds.
Enclave is used here as a concept to describe and understand these complex socio-spatial formations of the post-apartheid order that have been established in the absence of a state that is able to impose its authority and to regulate the daily lives of citizens. The term has been used in a number of literatures. Relevant for the argument here is the use of the term to describe the ability of mining firms to exploit natural resources in Africa and other developing parts of the world by actively creating the conditions for mines and mining areas to be insulated and isolated from national regimes of authority and regulation (see Bush 2009, 2010; Ferguson 2005, 2006). The focus of this literature is primarily the political economy of resources exploitation and resistance from communities and alluvial miners against this. Related to this is a more general literature in southern Africa that attempts to understand enclave economies. This literature goes beyond just the mining industry, but still attempts to understand geographic formations underlying the perpetuation of underdevelopment (see Bond 2007; Mhone 2001; Olukoshi 2007; Sidaway 2007). Finally, the term has been used in urban studies to understand the reconfiguration of urban spaces, such as the creation of gated communities under neoliberalism, as well as so-called ethnic or immigrant enclaves (see Caldeira 1996; Landman 2006; Pow 2007).
We attempt here to extend the concept beyond political economy or urban studies and to view post-apartheid enclaving as socio-spatial processes that include economic, state and social elements. We contend that a systematic study of the emerging social order in mining towns such as Rustenburg and the rest of the platinum belt provides illustrations of the emerging socio-spatial formations in the rest of the country. Our analysis is informed by David Harvey's (2006) understanding of space as absolute, relative and relational.
Absolute space refers to concrete structures in the Newtonian sense of the word. It refers to mountains, rivers and platinum ore, but also roads, walls and houses. To quote Harvey (2006, 121):
Absolute space is fixed and we record or plan events within its frame. This is the space of Newton and Descartes and it is usually represented as a pre-existing and immoveable grid amenable to standardized measurement and open to calculation. Geometrically it is … the space of all manner of cadastral mapping and engineering practices … Socially this is the space of private property and other bounded territorial designations (such as states, administrative units, city plans and urban grids).
Space is relative in the double sense: that there are multiple geometries from which to choose and that the spatial frame depends crucially upon what it is that is being relativized and by whom … All forms of measurement depended upon the frame of reference of the observer … We know, given the differential frictions of distance encountered on the earth's surface, that the shortest distance (measured in terms of time, cost, energy expended) between two points is not necessarily given by the way the legendary crow flies over physical distance. Furthermore the standpoint of the observer plays a critical role.
The relational view of space holds there is no such thing as space outside of the processes that define it. Processes do not occur in space but define their own spatial frame … The relational notion of space-time implies the idea of internal relations; external influences get internalized in specific processes or things through time … In a way, relational conceptions of space-time bring us to the point where mathematics, poetry, and music converge. (Ibid., 122–123)
Thus, in the context of this article, the notion of enclave denotes socio-spatial formations created by contending social forces in defence of their historical interests, in pursuit of new positions and privileges and in defence against the erosion of their existing socio-economic positions. Our argument is based on observations and interactions during numerous research trips to Rustenburg in order to conduct field work for academic and commissioned research from 1998 to the present, supplemented by Census data and a reading of policy documents, mostly from Rusternburg's local government authorities. Now we turn to case studies from Rustenburg, the centre of South Africa's platinum belt that has attracted worldwide interest because of the massacre of mineworkers by the police in August 2012 and the 2014 strike, the longest the South African mining industry has ever seen.
Enclave Rustenburg
The recent history of Rustenburg is the story of platinum. According to Capps (2012, 66), South Africa has an estimated 87% of the world's platinum reserves and produced 76% of the word's platinum in 2009 – the bulk of this from Rustenburg and its hinterland. Rustenburg is often presented as a platinum mining success story, with municipal authorities pointing to the town's economic growth rate, which is much higher than South Africa's as a whole. Mining accounts for more than half of the town's economy (53% in 2009). Rustenburg, which means place (or literally castle) of rest, was named as such by the Boers who settled in the then Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek in the mid 1800s. It was established even before Pretoria, and became the centre of the Gereformeerde Kerk (Reformed Church), a Calvinist splinter group from the older Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church). The town formed a trading centre for the agricultural community and included prominent Indian traders right from the onset. Currently, a street in central Rustenburg is named after one of these trader families, the Bhayaats.
Mining booms tend to produce winners and losers and Rustenburg is no exception. Manufacturing has not kept pace with developments in mining. In fact, manufacturing jobs declined from approximately 12,000 in 1995 to 7000 in 2009. Mining booms also tend to happen very fast and create logics of their own. The platinum belt around Rustenburg seems to have developed with little real urban planning. There is a staggering range of government planning documents and reports by consultants, but little evidence that these documents transpire into real processes of urban development. An important indicator: 45.1% of Rustenburg's residents live in formal houses, while 41.5% live in shacks (Rustenburg Local Municipality 2011, 35). This figure of nearly 42% is high when one considers the national average of 15% of people who reside in shacks. Of Rustenburg's estimated 500,000 residents, roughly 250,000 live in areas that are classified as ‘non-tribal land’. A further 150,000 people live on ‘tribal land’, 30,000 in compounds and 40,000 on farms in the municipal area (Rustenburg Local Municipality 2012a, 26). Notwithstanding the construction of many RDP houses1 in the area, as well as compounds that mine companies have converted into apartments and family accommodation, Rustenburg has a housing backlog of 64,536 units, the local government identified 38 informal settlements, as well as 16,461 backyard shacks. According to one document, ‘[t]he main challenge is the availability of land and the lack of law enforcement’ (Rustenburg Local Municipality 2012b, 73). Local planning documents provide evidence that local authorities are aware of shortcomings:
[T]he provision of basic services by the Rustenburg LM towards its residents needs to be improved. Based on the socio-economic characteristics identified for the local municipality, it is clear that the LED Strategy will need to improve the socio-economic conditions in the local municipality.
(Rustenburg Local Municipality 2011, 38)
But how did this situation develop without much notice paid to the squalor before the tragic events at Marikana? Rapid migration into the area may in part explain this. Figure 1 illustrates that the city's population grew from 366,533 in 1996 to 395,533 in 2001. This growth accelerated considerably to 549,575 in 2011.
Rustenburg male and female population, 1996, 2001, 2011.
Source: Statistics South Africa Census data for 1996, 2001 and 2011.
Importantly, migration into Rustenburg followed a gendered pattern. Men outnumbered women by 34,008 in 1996, by 32,375 in 2001 and by 54,017 in 2011. Figures 2 Figure 3 –4 contain population pyramids for Rustenburg generated from the Census data for 1996, 2001 and 2011. These figures illustrate that men in the age cohorts between 20 and 60 years of age mostly account for this gender imbalance. By 2011, men in the age cohorts of 45 to 60 years of age outnumbered women in the same cohort by approximately a third. As we shall see, these imbalances become even more pronounced when one considers the settlement patterns of post-apartheid Rustenburg.
Gender by age cohorts in Rustenburg, 1996.
Source: Statistics South Africa Census data for 1996.
Gender by age cohorts in Rustenburg, 2001.
Source: Statistics South Africa Census data for 2001.
Gender by age cohorts in Rustenburg, 2011.
Source: Statistics South Africa Census data for 2011.
In Tables 1 and 2 we present the numbers and proportions of Rustenburg's population groups as classified by the Census data, as well as numbers and proportions of first languages spoken by the city's residents. We provide these figures as a baseline for the overall picture in Rustenburg and this becomes significant when one examines data for smaller areas. The presence of significant numbers of IsiXhosa, Xitsonga and Sesotho speakers is indicative of the legacy of migrant labour in the mining industry, with many of the latter two groups drawn from Mozambique and Lesotho respectively.
| Population group | People | Percentage (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Black (African) | 486,411 | 88.51 |
| White | 51,840 | 9.43 |
| Coloured | 4862 | 0.88 |
| Indian or Asian | 4215 | 0.77 |
| Other | 2247 | 0.41 |
| First language | People | Percentage (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Setswana | 287,708 | 53.93 |
| Afrikaans | 52,869 | 9.91 |
| isiXhosa | 51,214 | 9.60 |
| Xitsonga | 29,853 | 5.60 |
| English | 28,522 | 5.35 |
| Sesotho | 27,906 | 5.23 |
| Other | 16,573 | 3.11 |
| isiZulu | 15,115 | 2.83 |
| Sepedi | 9643 | 1.81 |
| isiNdebele | 5588 | 1.05 |
| SiSwati | 3360 | 0.63 |
| Tshivenda | 2983 | 0.56 |
| Sign language | 2178 | 0.41 |
| Not applicable | 16,064 |
The reference to ‘the lack of law enforcement’ in local government documents could be applied to a number of state functions and in the absence of a functional state in the area (or adequate planning by mining companies), a process of enclaving characterises the transition from apartheid to a new order on the platinum belt. We now turn to four common-sense socio-spatial categories under apartheid in order to structure our discussion of the emerging post-apartheid order – these categories are suburb, compound, township and homeland.
Suburb
The term suburb in the South African context historically referred to areas delineated for residential occupation by South Africans classified as white. As the poet Denis Hirson wrote about these spaces, ‘history stops where the suburbs begin’ (Hirson 2007, 7), as a comment on the continuation of daily life there, even after the imprisonment of his father, Baruch Hirson, by the apartheid state in the 1960s. These suburbs looked similar to many of their counterpart urban residential spaces in many other parts of the Fordist and post-Fordist countries of the global North. These were not merely residential areas, but in relational terms also spaces of aspiration, consumption and modern order based on urban planning and state regulation. In the South African context, this regulation took on the policing of such areas based on institutionalised and codified racial profiling on the basis of the pass system and, at times, curfews. Of course we should add here that white suburbs were segmented on the basis of class and, at times, ethnicity. Suburbs closer to industrial areas and townships were generally white working-class spaces while those further away were upper-class areas.
If one considers what the Census still classifies as ‘Rustenburg’ – i.e. old Rustenburg excluding townships, compounds and rural villages – the white proportion counts as 40%, the vast majority of whom are Afrikaans speaking. However, a significant number of Setswana (28%), Sesotho (4%), isiXhosa (3%) and Xitsonga (3%) speakers now reside in these former exclusively white areas, with black people now counting 53%. The picture however changes drastically in some of the individual neighbourhoods. The residents of Rustenburg Oos-Einde are 72% white (70% Afrikaans speaking) and in Protea Park (proclaimed as a suburb in 1964) there are 78% white (76% Afrikaans speaking). White Afrikaans speakers still dominate in Safari Tuine (76% white and 68% Afrikaans), but this suburb has a significant number of English speakers as well (15%).
There was already a measure of class stratification in apartheid's white suburbs, but this has become more striking and has accelerated. Broadly, suburbs today are more segmented than in the past and this segmentation reflects both race and class. At the bottom end are what we call gateway suburbs, township-style housing that is built in open spaces in between formerly white suburbs and the townships, which means they are closer to town than the townships of old. An example of this is Thlabane West. Upwardly mobile black mineworkers, many of them union shop stewards, can now afford their own homes. Many also rent apartments from mining companies that are located close to new shopping centres and suburban schools. Others rent back rooms and garages in suburbs that may be socially more isolated, but closer to amenities than townships and informal settlements. The second tier is the formerly white working-class areas, where ‘white flight’ often results when large-scale black in-migration takes place. It is here where one finds a degree of integrated residential patterns. The third tier is made up of the more established white middle-class areas. In many of these the demographic profile of residents looks similar to the past with only a smattering of black residents. Clearly, the logic of the old pass laws and its brutal system of policing by racial profiling are no longer possible here, at least not overtly. But class has become a major predictor of who can reside in these areas. In many of these suburbs private security firms now operate from remote control rooms where they can respond to household alarms and panic buttons.
Located nearby the middle-class areas is the fourth tier, made up of palatial homes, many of them in gated housing estates where the privatisation of policing is taken to an extreme level. Indeed, if one takes the N4 highway – or the Platinum Highway – from Pretoria to Rustenburg, one of the first sights that strikes the motorist is a number of mansions on the hills that look down on the valley with its platinum mines and sprawling informal settlements. These mansions – sarcastically called McMansions by some locals, referring to the uniformity of these faux-Tuscan villas – are in typical South African security estates with strict access control. We tried in vain to get access to one of these villages in order to study it more closely. Without a contact on the inside who could vet us, the security guards did not allow us to enter the gates. Access control systems use biometric systems in order to identify residents and their domestic staff. This gated community, which forms part of the suburb of Cashan, is the most extreme form of elite enclaving in Rustenburg.
In terms of absolute space, a number of suburbs have been gated – houses are now surrounded by high walls with electric fences and entrances are guarded by private security firms and biometric technology that can determine whether a person can enter such a space or not. Suburbs that are not gated are often guarded by ‘armed response’ security companies. In terms of relative space, where you stand becomes important – whether you are on the inside or the outside. Where state infrastructure fails (both physical, but also schools and health care), the market provides in the form of private schools and hospitals. But our discussion also shows significant relational elements – residents feel a sense of belonging and security inside these spaces, but fear and vulnerability when they leave them. Those on the outside are subjected to searches and harassment when they move through suburban spaces, not by the police, but privatised militia. There is a social profile of the kind of person who belongs in these spaces and those who do not, profiles that are classed, raced and gendered (see Valji, Harris, and Simpson 2004).
Compound
As in other mining towns, worker compounds are a major feature of accommodation arrangements around the platinum mines of Rustenburg. Moodie (2015) points out that mining companies had different approaches to the control of compounds and their final opening up for organising by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) after its formation in 1982. The NUM came rather late to Rustenburg and its formation was complicated by a number of factors. There were major differences between Anglo American and Gencor mines, with Gencor being more authoritarian and anti-union. To make matters worse, Rustenburg Impala Platinum, owned by Gencor, was located in the bantustan of Bophuthatswana, where the union was not allowed to organise. In this context workers relied on pre-existing forms of informal organisation to mobilise solidarity. As Dunbar Moodie shows in this issue, these structures became the basis for the emergence of worker committees that predate formal union organisation. Underground organisation by the NUM as part of the liberation struggle operated alongside, but at times in competition with, these worker committees, and initially took on the form of marshals. ‘Revolutionary discipline’ was not always based on solidarity and persuasion, but often on violent enforcement, which became part of recognised organising repertoires in Rustenburg.
In spite of these differences between mining firms regarding their use of compounds, the fact remains that the institution was initially designed as a form of spatial control by management, but, once captured by the union, also proved to be an effective tool of union control over the movement of members during strikes (see Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu 2011). In part due to this turning of the tables by the union, and in part due to political pressure, mining companies sought to ‘depopulate’ the compounds from the 1990s onwards (Crush and James 1991). The government-sanctioned Mining Charter added to this pressure by setting targets for a reduction on compound-based employees. The NUM initially resisted the notion of living-out allowances, arguing that this would lead to slums (Moodie 2015), but one also has to see this in the light of the union realising that it was losing an important instrument of control over a captive membership. It should also be pointed out that the NUM emerged as a force in Rustenburg at a time when influx control had already been abandoned by the apartheid state and informal settlements already had been present in close proximity to some of the mine compounds. With repression in some of the compounds, the union used neighbouring settlements as organisational base in order to infiltrate compounds, leading, at least in one case, to the destruction of a settlement by a mining company in response (Moodie 2015).
Nevertheless, there is general consensus that the compound as a form of control is less central to mining towns now than two decades ago. As Moodie (2015) argues in this issue:
The move from hostels into informal settlements, clustered around the mines across the platinum belt, has complicated union (and management) relations with workers. Mine hostels themselves, however, like all complex social institutions, were never passive structures dominated by white managers and black indunas. They were hives of social activity, myriad informal networks, differentiated and overlapping in manifold ways. There were friendship networks of ‘home-boys’ (often cutting across mines), drinking buddies, room groups, work groups, ethnic organisations, sports teams, criminal gangs, church congregations, ethnic associations, stokfel savings clubs, people on the make and people on the take.
It should be mentioned that not all compounds are turned into ‘residences’. A compound near Kroondal is used to house employees of subcontractors to mines. According to data from the Department of Mineral Resources, in March 2012, platinum mines employed 134,264 permanent employees and 66,394 workers though subcontractors. In March 2013, there were 140,745 permanent employees and contract workers were reduced to 49,258, but they were still a significant proportion. This means that between a third and a quarter of those in the platinum labour market are subcontracted. The fluctuation in number also illustrates the sense of work insecurity these subcontracted employees have to live with. Subcontracted workers are generally lower paid and tend not to be union members (Forrest 2015; Kenny and Bezuidenhout 1999). They still live in filthy, old-style, overcrowded dormitories. Here access is still tightly controlled and visitors such as journalists and researchers are definitely not welcome. These are also gated communities, but in ways that remind us of the past.
Those workers who move out of compounds have moved into different forms of residential arrangements, including informal settlements, but also houses in townships and suburbs. Upward class mobility is taking place simultaneously with downward mobility.
In terms of absolute space, compounds have always been gated. Ironically, these walls are now used by those on the inside to keep potential criminal elements out, whereas they were initially designed to imprison those on the inside. Again, in relative terms, where one is located in the hierarchy of residence, hostel or compound becomes significant – they provide variable degrees of comfort and protection. Also, all those who live in compounds are employed and not surrounded by unemployed community members and relatives, which is not the case in the surrounding townships and informal settlements. Hence, some mine compounds, like the gated communities on the hill, have now become enclaves of relative prosperity and stability. In relational terms, living in a residence implies security and some sense of protection from arbitrary violence, as these former compounds are still protected by company security staff or subcontracted security companies. This is not to say that compound residents are completely isolated from surrounding communities. Many of these men move between the compounds, townships, informal settlements and their rural villages back home in a dynamic interaction.
Township
Historically, Rustenburg had two main urban townships, namely Tlhabane and Boitekong. A third – Phokeng – was classified as a village during the apartheid and homeland era, but has grown from a settlement of 4951 inhabitants in 1960 to a township of 43,800 inhabitants by 2001 (Capps 2003, 1). Planning documents now refer to Phokeng as a residential ‘cluster’, alongside Boitekong. Tlhabane, the oldest of the townships, was established in the 1920s as the result of forced removals. It was first known as Oukasie, which is an abbreviation of the Afrikaans words ‘Ou Lokasie’, translated as ‘Old Location’. In 1977, with the ‘independence’ of Bophuthatswana, Tlhabane was excluded from the borders of South Africa. Phokeng also formed part of Bophuthatswana, which meant that residents from these townships were stripped of their South African citizenship. Boitekong was established in the 1960s and did not fall within the borders of Bophuthatswana. As such it was administered by the South African government. These townships, with their ‘matchbox’ houses and grid-like dusty streets, were typically designed as labour dormitories whose residents were initially meant to meet the labour needs of the town, principally domestic service, local government, commerce and the small manufacturing sector. With the abandonment of influx control in the mid 1980s, the outskirts of these townships became areas where informal settlements sprang up. Like the suburbs, these townships have also segmented into new residential formations.
The first segment is made up of the old parts with typical matchbox houses. Here we have to note from the outset differences between Boitekong and Phokeng, the first falling under the Rustenburg local government and the second being part of Bafokeng land. The Review of the Rustenburg Integrated Development Plan explains how the two regimes impact differently on places such as Boitekong (located on ‘non-tribal land’) and Phokeng (located on ‘tribal’ land):
The Boitekong Cluster is a settlements cluster that is largely linked to the growth in the platinum mining industry, which has led to an immigration of people to this cluster seeking employment on the adjacent mines. Consequently, the Boitekong Cluster has had an exceptionally high growth rate in recent years, a trend that is expected to continue. Based on this, it is expected that the Boitekong Cluster will grow in the order of 5% per annum during the forthcoming years … The growth of the Phokeng Cluster will not be as dramatic. This settlement cluster has not expanded at the same rate over the past few years. This is despite the fact that it is located close to the core area and has partly to do with Bafokeng's policy of providing land only for Bafokeng citizens on Bafokeng-owned land. The growth rate of the Phokeng Cluster is therefore expected to be approximately 2% per annum. (Rustenburg Local Municipality 2012b, 27)
The second segment of the township is constituted by the new extensions where private sector developers build houses that are then sold to potential buyers.
The third segment is made up of informal settlements. As pointed out above, while 45% of people in Rustenburg live in formal houses, 42% live in shacks. The majority of these shacks are in informal settlements, but many are in backyards in formal housing areas. Informal settlements tend to proliferate near mineshafts and are often far from formal shopping businesses. As a result, informal traders are a central part of commercial activity in these areas. Shopkeepers are often from other countries, such as Somalia, China, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Although these foreign nationals are integrated into local communities to a large degree, they become easy targets during times of unrest. For example, towards the end of the recent strike at Impala Platinum, hungry strikers turned on shopkeepers, looting their shops and forcing them to flee.
Nkaneng, an informal settlement established in 1997, forms part of the Census district called Wonderkoppies. Here men account for a staggering 65% of residents. IsiXhosa speakers make up 42% of the population and Xitsonga speakers 16%, only then followed by 15.5% Setswana and 12% Sesotho speakers. If one takes into account the Census data for only Lonmin's Western Platinum Mines, which includes the mine compounds, men account for 72% of the population (IsiXhosa, 42%, Setswana 24%, Sesotho 13%, Xitsonga 7%). In Nkaneng's 10,235 households lived 17,461 people, with a population density of 4642 people per square kilometre. Men accounted for 64% of the population, IsiXhosa speakers for 42% (numbering 7318), Xitsonga 18%, Setswana 14% and Sesotho 11%.
Freedom Park, near Impala Platinum, was established in 1986 by women who set up shacks in order to sell liquor to mineworkers. According to the 2011 Census it has a population of more than 23,000 and a density of 3661 people per square kilometre. Men form 63% of the community, which, like Nkaneng, includes a mine compound, Wildebeestfontein, as well as a section with RDP-type houses. Setswana and IsiXhosa speakers constitute equal proportions of 30% of the community, followed by Sesotho speakers (19%) and Xitsonga speakers (9%). In the Census sub-place Freedom Park B (which excludes the RDP-type houses), men account for 65% of the community, Sesotho speakers account for 35% of the community and IsiXhosa speakers account for 32%, far outnumbering any other linguistic group. An analysis of income levels in Wonderkoppies and Freedom Park shows a clustering around the mean wages of mineworkers, which provides for a more homogenous class composition in these areas than in places such as Cashan and Tlhabane (see Figure 5).
The fourth segment comprises state-built houses – so-called RDP houses, named after the now-abandoned Reconstructed and Development Programme. These settlements are typically built by the state on mostly affordable land on the outskirts of existing townships and informal settlements. They are modelled on older matchbox housing settlements, but are generally a smaller, cheaper and poorly built version. As in other parts of the country, these settlements also lack infrastructure and urban planning that may lead to the creation of sustainable communities with public amenities such as shopping areas, school, places of worship and recreational facilities, and articulation with viable and affordable public transport systems. Local government reports cite a litany of problems associated with these areas: ‘RDP Houses used as business sites – owners renting out houses to non-South African residents’; ‘Crime growing/spreading’; ‘High unemployment rate resulting in crime and prostitution’; and ‘Problems with sewer blockages and overflowing at RDP township’ (Rustenburg Local Municipality 2012a, 182, 186, 260).
The fifth segment is made up of former coloured and Indian townships, Karlien Park and Ziniaville respectively. In Karlien Park, a very small area, significant integration has taken place with coloureds accounting for 39% of the population (a mere 785 people, mostly Afrikaans speaking) and Africans (mostly Setswana speakers) accounting for 58% of the population. Ziniaville was created in the 1960s when Indian South Africans were removed from the town centre. It is still predominantly Indian, with 69% of the population here classified as such by the 2011 Census.
None of these spaces are gated in absolute spatial terms like security villages or compounds. There is also very little evidence of privatised security firms patrolling the streets and residents here rely on the state for policing, which is more often than not woefully inadequate. Housing structures are also quite diverse, ranging from township matchbox houses built under apartheid to so-called RDP houses, from new private sector developments to sprawling shacklands such as Freedom Park and Nkaneng. Again, where you are placed in this geography in relation to others has meanings for access to physical and social infrastructure and services. At the time of the 2012 strike at Impala Platinum, the makeshift police station in Freedom Park was set up in an old shipping container – this in the world's richest platinum mining town. Maybe not surprisingly, the ‘station’ was burnt down during the strike. Relationally, therefore, especially residents of informal settlements have a different sense of the state and expectations of personal safety. Law and order, in the loose sense of the words, are often maintained by vigilante groups that morph into protection rackets – a privatisation of the security function but of a completely different order. As Chinguno (2013b, 642) points out:
An important feature of many of the informal settlements is the weakness or absence of local state structures. These have been in some cases substituted by informal structures that use vigilante-type violence to maintain order. This created a context for alternative systems to emerge. Many of them are ‘no-go areas’ for the South Africa Police Service.
‘Homeland’
In close proximity to Rustenburg is the former ‘homeland’, or, less politely, bantustan, of Bophuthatswana. We have already commented above on the impact of this bifurcation on residential patterns in Phokeng and Boitekong. Bophuthatswana was established formally in 1972 and became nominally ‘independent’ in 1977. A planning document of the North West provincial government mentions:
[t]he effect of the apartheid policies, especially the formation of homelands and tribal areas, is still strongly felt. It includes displaced urbanization and a settlement pattern that is to a large extent distorted, fragmented, unequal, incoherent, inefficient and frequently not sustainable. This settlement pattern generates enormous migration across vast areas. It also resulted in … [l]arge dormitory areas without economic, cultural and other opportunities … [o]vercrowded former homelands forced to depend on limited agricultural land, in turn leading to severe environmental degradation such as found in the western parts of the province … [s]ubstantial inequality between residential areas set aside for the various race groups … and [w]ide disparities in the provision of infrastructure and services. (North West Provincial Government 2005, 7)
According to a fact sheet published by Royal Bafokeng Holdings (Pty) Limited, it is ‘the primary investment vehicle of the Royal Bafokeng Nation, a community of approximately 300,000 Tswana-speaking people with substantial, minerals-rich land holdings in South Africa's North West Province'. When one considers historical data on the area, this estimation of 300,000 is most probably an exaggeration. Other estimates put the figure closer to 150,000 (Capps 2003). Nevertheless, some of the income from investments is ploughed back into the area. Bafokeng king, Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi, built a world-class and exclusive private school called Lebone II College. In this top school, 70% of places are reserved for Bafokeng children. This illustrates how ‘tribal land’ in Rustenburg constitutes another form of enclavity, built on what Mamdani (1996) refers to as a bifurcated state, a legacy of the colonial and apartheid periods that constituted distinct urban and rural political spheres that perversely continue in the post-apartheid era.
In practice, the resources of the Bafokeng mean that Rustenburg has two local authorities. One is the elected Rustenburg Local Municipality and the other is the Royal Bafokeng Authority. Both authorities provide services and both have town-planning functions. This is another example of how gated communities operate in Rustenburg. In addition to Phokeng, the main residential area, the official Bafokeng territory of the former bantustan, now reconstituted as the Royal Bafokeng Nation, comprises a number of rural settlements or villages, including GaLuka and Chaneng.
It is therefore important to take into account the legacy of Bophuthatswana borders, which still define two different forms of local government in the area. This is particularly important due to the interventionist stance on local development taken by the Royal Bafokeng Authorities. Ironically, in the case of Rustenburg, some of those who live on Bafokeng land, previously part of Bophuthatswana, seem to be better serviced than some of those who live on ‘non-tribal’ land. This is due to the use of income from platinum mining by the Royal Bafokeng authorities for ‘community development’, though even then its benefits are unevenly spread, and there is an intense politics of redistribution within and between different Bafokeng villages (see Capps 2003). Nevertheless, this possibly explains the fact that conflict often takes the form of ‘tribalism’ and the importance of migrant oppositional cultures.
Again, as in the case of townships and informal settlements, the boundaries of places such as Phokeng are not marked by walls and gates, apart from a place such as the Lebone II College, which has access control. In former ‘homeland’ areas markers are more relational and operate along ethnic lines, such as whether people can claim to be Mofokeng. Yet these old boundaries remain significant in the post-apartheid era and may imply significant upward social mobility, such as in cases where children meet the entry requirements for the Lebone II College – 70% of places in this institution are reserved for Bafokeng children; a different texture of enclavity.
Conclusion
Post-apartheid Rustenburg is characterised by different kinds of enclaves that emerged during the course of the decomposition of the apartheid social order. This resulted from the end of the socio-spatial engineering project that had come to characterise the mining industry for more than a century. The inauguration of the democratic state deprived the project of official state underwriting that it had enjoyed all along. Importantly, the ruling party comprised a coalition of forces that included some of the most powerful trade unions in the country, notably the National Union of Mineworkers. This had far-reaching social and political consequences for the industry. Whilst migrant labour continues, the local regimentation of migrant workers in compounds has collapsed. The migrant labour system is no longer a system underwritten by the state and the industry has been forced to devise new approaches to stabilising the mining labour force in mining areas. Indeed, the introduction of various forms of legislation and regulations signals a new approach by the new state to housing. For example, in 2009 the Department of Minerals and Energy promulgated the Housing and Living Conditions Standard for the Minerals Industry in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (28/2002) (Department of Minerals and Energy 2009). The first two principles of the regulations struck at the core of the old racial-spatial divide that underpinned the cheap labour system. These are: ‘2.1 Ensure a decent standard of housing for mineworkers; 2.2 Develop social, physical and economic integrated housing development within or outside the mining areas’ (Ibid., 5–6). Instead, many migrant workers have moved into informal settlements.
While the above may create the impression that the state has assumed an interventionist posture, the reality is that it has actually retreated from regulating the conditions of workers on the mines in the hope that the so-called voice regulation – robust collective bargaining between employers and trade unions (see Labour Market Commission 1996) – would act as a check on behaviour by key actors in the industry. An additional variable is that the enforcement of regulations – by both the Department of Mineral Resources and the Department of Labour – has weakened considerably since the achievement of democracy. Thus, even if there was a strong interventionist impulse in the new state, the capabilities to enforce regulations are extremely weak.
Intensified exposure, particularly of working people, to the vagaries of unregulated markets, including steep price hikes and inflation, high interest rates, rampant profiteering and a general increase in the cost of living for low-income households, has forced many to look inward. Add to this the ever-escalating rate of employment insecurity, job loss and unemployment, and we have a potent cocktail for social instability. Some of these pressures are induced by choices made at the workplace, industry and national state levels. But it is important to point out that global economic pressures are an important part of the context that gives rise to these local choices. Matters of crime and lack of personal security are crucial contributory factors that follow the collapse of the old infrastructure of apartheid social engineering. At issue is not only the collapse of the old system that offered security to the minority and kept the majority controlled through a battery of coercive measures, but the failure of the new state to provide security at the level of communities, neighbourhoods and private households and individuals. The flipside of this is the inability of markets to provide safety and security to people as citizens and as communities and the exposure of individuals to personal, corporal risk and harm.
It is against this backdrop that the trend towards enclaving discussed in this article should be understood. Indicators point to inadequate urban planning for the rapid growth of mining activities. These failures should be seen in the context of the local history and the bifurcated local state, as well as the continued reliance on migrant labour amidst the simultaneous depopulation of the compounds. The absence of the means to ensure adequate forms of social reproduction has led to a situation where the employment relationship is overdetermined and has to ‘carry’ social, market and state failures. Social inequality is etched onto Rustenburg's landscape and violence is very much part of the daily life experience of those who are not able to insulate themselves from it. Managers increasingly live in gated communities and some commute from Johannesburg or even overseas. Mineworkers and their families who live in compounds insist upon access control. Those in informal settlements are subjected routinely to random acts of violence. The Rustenburg story illustrates how South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world and, in the absence of a levelling out of incomes and resources, enclaving has become the dominant social formation.
We have shown how these enclaves take on different characteristics. Harvey's (2006) notions of absolute, relative and relational space are analytically distinct, but in practice they intersect in dynamic ways. In terms of absolute space (‘a pre-existing and immoveable grid amenable to standardized measurement and open to calculation’), we can map enclaves ranging from safe havens that are secured by high walls, high-tech access control and the privatisation of violence to informal settlements where inhabitants do not have the luxury of physical enclosure. In terms of relative space (‘what it is that is being relativized and by whom’), high walls and access control create certain possibilities for the demarcation of people as insiders or outsiders. These demarcations are classed, raced and gendered. The ability to move through such spaces or the restriction of movement, either by privatised violence or vigilante action, becomes key to understanding the emerging social order. In terms of relational space (‘external influences get internalized in specific processes or things through time’), we wish to cite Valji, Harris, and Simpson (2004, 3–4):
A further consequence of the fear of crime has been an accelerating retreat of middle-class communities behind high walls and private security, prompting a withdrawal from public space and pre-empting the possibility of relationship-building. Although there is a growing black elite who can now afford to join the ‘laager’ [Afrikaans reference to ox wagons positioned in a circle as makeshift fortification during battles], a recent survey reveals that only 2% of blacks have a private security or armed response system – in contrast to 45% of whites … Ironically, the construction of high walls, intended to protect, tends to fuel the cycle of fear and crime. Walls and fences have become the visible face of exclusion; a barrier between the haves and the have-nots. Although these barriers take on a different form today than in the past, they have the same effect of marginalizing a population that is almost exclusively black. This can fuel resentment and a sense of injustice on one side of the wall, and a sustained sense of entitlement and privilege on the other.
As will have become apparent in the discussion above, space is never neutral, it is socially produced and, in the process of its production, it is inscribed with relations of power and powerlessness (Harvey 2006, 2012; Lefebvre 1991). A security village, a compound or an informal settlement is never just a residential space. Thus mapping this fractured post-apartheid social order onto the Rustenburg landscape provides for a complex but potentially fruitful understanding of the South African transition and new articulations of class, race, gender, nationality and ethnicity. We have not focused in this article on the immediate spatial dynamics that led to the Massacre – the workers being sent from the stadium and how they then commandeered Wonderkop as a space. This larger map does, however, provide for some understanding of the context that formed the backdrop to the tragic events of August 2012 and their aftermath.