Women of Marikana : survival and struggles

Abstract: On 16 August 2012, 34 striking miners were killed at Marikana, a small mining town in Rustenburg, South Africa. The massacre received considerable media attention around the world. It has been scrutinised by a Presidential Commission of Inquiry, and it has provided a focus for academic writing that spanned across mining economics, iniquities of migrant labour, responsibility for the tragedy, policing, living and working conditions and union organisation. However, very little has been said about the women who lived side by side with the striking workers. These were women whose poverty helped propel the fight for a living wage and who suffered from police repression. They were often treated badly by their husbands and boyfriends; but, their leadership and solidarity made it possible for the miners to win a five-month strike in 2014. This dissertation provides a feminist contribution in its analysis of this seminal moment in South African history. In the process, it offers a vantage point from which to learn more about the lives of women in South Africa’s mining communities and about their capacity to change those lives. It also shows that women in mining communities are not mere extensions of male miners, but have their own agency, interests, ideas and forms of mobilisation which need to be recognised and acknowledged. In attempting to offer the perspectives of women in Marikana, various research methods were deployed and integrated. These included a survey, participant and non-participant observation, informal conversations and semi-structured and life-history interviews. Most data has been analysed and presented thematically. However, there are also three autobiographical life histories. These help to understand the women holistically and without imposing the author’s opinions. Four engagements, including report-back meetings, were held as a way of showing respect and gratitude to the women who participated in the project. These sessions, along with small acts of practical support, helped win trust among the women when tension and fear were widespread following the Marikana massacre. The dissertation reports on how the massacre and the related strikes impacted on the lives of women in Marikana. The findings reject a linear model of activism that sees women moving from domestic passivity to political activity as a consequence of involvement in the strike. This breaks...M.A. (Sociology