Image courtesy of Ihsaan Haffejee and GroundUp.
Watch the webinar below.
Date and time: Tuesday, 28 January at 13:00 – 14:00
Venue: Online
Register: Zoom
From 3-6 February, mining industry professionals, investors, policymakers, and other stakeholders will convene at the Cape Town International Convention Centre for the 2025 Investing in African Mining Indaba. The theme for this year’s indaba is “Future-Proofing African Mining, Today!” Held annually since the democratic transition in 1994, this event is being held mere weeks after 78 miners were confirmed dead at Stilfontein. For many, the actions of state and non-state elites at Stilfontein echo the 2012 Marikana Massacre, where police fatally shot 34 striking mineworkers.
Accordingly, the purpose of this webinar panel is to situate and discuss the upcoming mining indaba, Stilfontein, and Marikana within the broader contexts of marginalised rural livelihoods and the legitimacy of the post-apartheid state. Historically, the mining sector played a singularly important role in the development and sustenance of white minority rule in southern Africa, whereby primarily rural communities provided a ready supply of cheap labor for the apartheid regime and its transnational enablers. Mining and miners continue to serve as lynchpins in South Africa’s economy. While the mining sector has undergone some degree of racial transformation since democracy, miners continue to struggle for better pay and better working conditions. Both domestic and migrant mineworkers – as has occurred for decades in South Africa – continue to come from historically marginalised communities.
That so little progress has been made for mining workers and their home communities since the dawn of democracy and the tragedy of Marikana raises significant questions about the current status of the social contract between the state, the private sector, and society. IGiven the increasingly blurred lines between state, party, capital, and criminal networks in the contemporary mining industry, questions about the state’s capacity, legitimacy, and monopoly on the use of force are more poignant now than ever. Mining governance and justice also has global implications, as information technologies, “clean” energy, and geopolitical competition are all inextricably linked to the mining of Africa’s critical mineral wealth.
In anticipation of the forthcoming mining indaba, our webinar panelists will comment on these pressing issues and more.
The seminar will be chaired by Prof Moenieba Isaacs from the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape.
Panelists
iGamirodi Tauriq Jenkins, Community Engagement Strategist, PhD scholar at the Centre of African Studies and Linguistics, University of Cape Town
iGamirodi Tauriq Jenkins is a Convenor of the Anti-Repression Working Group of the C19 People’s Coalition and an accredited monitor for the South African Human Rights Commission. As chair of the AIXARRA Restorative Justice Forum, based at the Centre for African Studies University of Cape Town, he convenes the commissions on Sacred Human Remains, and Land. He is the High Commissioner of the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Traditional Indigenous Council and involved in various civic, heritage and environmental structures including the Observatory Civic Association, Two Rivers Urban Park Association, and the Civic for Action in Public Participation. He holds an MFA, School of the Arts, Columbia University, and an alumnus of the International Fellows Program, School of International Public Affairs, Columbia University. He is a PhD Mafeje Scholar at the Centre for African Studies, and the Community Engagement Strategist for the San and Khoi Centre. In 2013, he was awarded the prestigious International Davis Peace Prize for groundbreaking theatre and rehabilitation work in South African prisons.
Professor Crispen Chinguno, Senior Lecturer at Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley and President: South African Sociological Association (SASA)
Prof Crispen Chinguno is a lecturer of Sociology in the Department of Social Science in Sol Plaatje University’s (SPU) School of Humanities. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand and is an NRF C3-rated researcher. Prof Chinguno was elected President of the South African Sociological Association (SASA) for 2024/25. He was a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and was awarded the African Humanities fellowship by the American Council of Learned Societies. His research areas are labor studies, trade unions, social movements, working class agency, labor and development, and the sociology of violence. He has recently published articles in the Review of the African Political Economy, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Journal of Workplace Rights, Juridikum, Peripherie, Global Labour Journal, and the South African Labour Bulletin. He appeared as an expert witness before the Farlan Commission of Enquiry into the Marikana events.
Dr Lebogang Moremedi, Head of Ministry for Education in the Northern Cape Province; PhD scholar at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape
Dr Lebogang Moremedi is the Head of Ministry for Education in the Northern Cape provincial government. He holds a PhD in Public Administration, from North West University, where his research topic was on the ‘The Evaluation Framework for Land Restitution in the Northern Cape Province’. He is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, at PLAAS, University of the Western Cape. His research topic is ‘Understanding the Artisanal Diamond Mining for Sustainable Livelihood in the Northern Cape: the Case of Makarapane’. His research study with PLAAS is at a wrap-up stage. Dr Moremedi has extensive work experience at a middle management level in the field of Policy and Youth Development for about 13 years, shared between the Department of Social Development, as well as the National Youth Development Agency. He has also served on various Boards such as the Northern Cape Economic Development, Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (2016-2020); Premier’s Bursary Fund (2015-2019); and currently serves as a Treasurer to the Northern Cape Schools Trust since 2019.
Resource list:
- Karombo, Tawanda. 2025. “Mining Indaba 2025: industry faces critical challenges amid investment
hopes.” Business Report. January 19. - Dlamini, Sizwe. 2025. “Stilfontein disaster sparks outrage and demands for accountability.” Sunday
Independent. January 18. - Manyane, Manyane. 2025. “Report claims Zama zamas syndicates sell products to legitimate companies
and fund political campaigns.” January 21. - Morris, Rosalind. 2025. “Informal mining in South Africa is here to stay. Police brutality won’t end it –
here’s what will.” The Conversation. January 22. - Mabasa, Khwezi and Crispen Chinguno. 2022. “Marikana massacre | 10 years later these are three
lessons we can learn.” City Press. August 12. - Makgetla, Neva Seidman. 2021. “Mining and Minerals in South Africa.” In Arkebe Oqubay, Fiona
Tregenna, and Imraan Valodia (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the South African Economy (2021; online
edn, Oxford Academic, 8 Dec.).
