Coal and Energy in South Africa

This volume was an eye opener. The authors in this work of genuinely thorough scholarship skillfully use their South African mining story to develop bigger arguments about the complexity of transitioning away from a dominant resource economy. While the dramatic history of South Africa and its outsized mining sector is unique, the set of questions which arise is not. The town they focus on is still booming, but other communities already experience post-mining life, and, as the editors say, 'nobody plans for decline'. Planning for decline is especially hard when coping with growth requires all attention of local government, when post-apartheid elites want to finally benefit, and business people do not see an end to the boom. Envisioning what a transition would look like, and preparing for this, is hard. Turning such vision into a strategy is even harder. If we want such a transition to be more than economic survival, and more than avoiding environmental catastrophe, i.e. if we strive for fairness in the process and prosperous communities as a result, then the dimensions of the challenge are hard to overestimate. As the authors note, the reverberations of unregulated and unanticipated closure after a boom can span generations. Neo-liberal ideologies and mining companies anxious to avoid responsibility for communities they used to control, as well as workers desperately in need of opportunities, do not prevent the search for a just transition, however. The analyses in this book reveal, beyond complexity and despair, many signs of hope and pathways to brighter post-mining futures. -- Kristof Van Assche * University of Alberta *