An epistemologically rooted threat perspective to land rights complexities faced by a mining community in South Africa

Context and background Changing narratives on contested land use rights have had important implications in (re)shaping the ever-evolving land use policies of many countries across the globe. Yet in sub-Saharan Africa there has been no single study that has attempted to explicitly decipher such implications on land policy – at least from the contested land use rights perspective. This study fills this knowledge void by using a ‘comprehensive and epistemologically rooted threat perspective’ approach to trace such changing narratives and discuss their implications for the future land policy in a mining community of South Africa.   Goal and Objectives: The primary focus of this paper is to explore how different epistemic perspectives explain the land rights dilemmas and are shaping land policy interventions confronting a mining community in South Africa. Specifically, the paper will address the following research questions: What are the main land rights dilemmas faced by the host mining community? What epistemic narratives predominantly explain the land rights problems faced by the host mining community? From an epistemological standpoint, what are the land policy interventions required to deal with existing land rights problems? Methodology: The study employs a mixed-methods approach in which a household survey, key informant interviews with traditional leadership structures, municipal officials and the mining company leadership were used to collect empirical evidence. By combining the two statistical methods of Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) and Decision tree analysis, the study managed to profile land rights dilemmas affecting the mining host community, the epistemic narratives behind the understanding of such dilemmas and the mapping of respective land policy interventions.   Results: Study results revealed that mining activities significantly compromised five specific land use rights, namely, (i) the right to possess, (ii) the right to security, (iii) the right to income, (iv) the right to manage, and right to (v) transmissibility. Other adverse impacts noted included total loss of land, displacement, environmental degradation, economic losses and poor health outcomes. To limit the adversity associated with mining activities, the study concluded by recommending several policy interventions. These include (1) the development of a community-led land use plan (2) implementing community led environmental impact assessments (3) developing a collaborative platforms in which communities have a larger voice in the compensation for lost land assets and decisions on relocations (4) creation of a multistakeholder forum in which mining officials, responsible government department, community leadership are constantly engaging and implementing consensus based solutions to land use rights challenges brought by the mining operations and (5) enforce mining authorities to adhere to existing regulatory instruments designed by the South African government to protect the land use rights of displaced communities. We conclude by calling on efforts to tackle land rights dilemmas to pay special attention to environmental, common property law, health, economic, and displacement-related narratives that are currently shaking the land rights discourse in mining host communities.