Transformation from below: questions from the Mabola struggle to achieve a just transition in South Africa

Abstract:This article focuses on the concept of a ‘just transition’ and asks what work it does. When the concept of a just transition from coal was introduced into South Africa by the labour movement in 2010, it had a transformative potential. Since then the concept has been appropriated by powerful forces, stripped of its radical content and reduced to mean only a shift to a new (largely privatised) energy regime. Theoretically framed by Critical Environmental Justice Studies the article draws from an account of the struggle against the proposed establishment of a coal mine in the Mabola Protected Area to illustrate some of the problems and potential of reclaiming a transformative version of a just transition.