Below the Land Deals: The Making of Mineral Property in Ga-Mphahlele, South Africa, 1880–1994

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the transformation of mineral matter into mineral property from the vantage point of Ga-Mphahlele, a section of northern South Africa's platinum belt in which minerals are particularly complex to access. Building on Thomas Sikor and Christian Lund's work, I show that the demands of mining capital played a key role in facilitating a co-constitutive relationship between political authority and mineral property. Because of the geological difficulties accessing Ga-Mphahlele's platinum, mining companies have only shown an intermittent interest in the area's minerals, resulting in a volatile relationship between mineral property and political authority. In turn, this has meant that minerals have often been a relatively unstable property form. By adding the role of capital to Lund and Sikor's analytic lens for studying property and authority, this article tracks the relationship between chiefly authority, African land purchasing, platinum companies, and the emergence of mineral rights.