The project employed different research methods, including historical and participatory arts research methods. Firstly, Over 1,000 archival files were collected on the socio-economic developments in the then North-Western Transvaal between 1890-1975 following its incorporation into the colonial, and later Apartheid, administrations of South Africa. An overview of archival documents reveals several themes including the alienation of indigenous land, the creation of reserves or locations for disenfranchised Africans, policing the movement and activities of indigenous people on a micro- and macro-level, anxieties among white farmers and government officials about the ‘illegal squatting’ of Africans farms, and unrest amongst the indigenous population. One of the first acts of the colonial government following the appropriation of indigenous land was the creation of so-called native locations. The preoccupation with controlling the movement of Africans was not confined to the macro level, such as large-scale ‘resettlement’, but extended to individual cases of ‘squatting’. Besides making land available to white farmers, the creation of native locations enabled colonial authorities to monitor and control segments of the indigenous population in the hope of neutralising the threat of rebellion. For example, there was concern relating to unrest in Shongoane’s Stad in the northern Waterberg in 1923. At roughly the same time, the Waterberg region became of interest to the colonial government for an entirely different reason: its potential mineral wealth. From 1920 onwards, a series of geological surveys were conducted to explore the viability of coal deposits in the Waterberg district culminating in a vast area being appropriated by the national government under the Second Schedule of the Reserved Minerals Development Act in 1926. Notwithstanding, the relatively low quality of the coal meant that intensive coal mining only began in the 1970s as a response to looming international sanctions against the Apartheid government. While the establishment of ‘native locations’, and later ‘Bantustans’, presented the government with a means to control indigenous groups, the reality was more complex. Documentary evidence for the period between 1932 and 1968 indicates that, despite the implementation of increasingly restrictive laws, African migrant labourers and their families continued to move between different settler and state-owned farms. The difficulty in ‘containing’ indigenous populations has ongoing implications. Despite the region not being a hotbed of anti-apartheid struggle, the everyday ways in which colonial and apartheid regimes were subverted enabled some degree of independence and an ongoing central attachment to the land, even when coal industrial development took off. This centrality requires ongoing research to understand viable alternatives to fossil fuel extractivism and address the climate crisis.
Secondly, the project employed interview-based methods through a total of 60 one-on-one semi-structured and focus group interviews with different constituencies: residents, small-scale farmers, environmental justice activists, local government officials, coal-fired power station workers, and mine officials. Among the key findings, were the impacts of climate change, particularly severe droughts and unpredictable rainfall, on small-scale farmers. Without a predictable planting month, small-scale farmers have produced less yield, affecting food insecurity levels in the region. With little government support, women small-scale farmers preserve, multiply and exchange indigenous seeds. Another key finding was the loss of land and the desecration of graves and ancestral sites by coal developments. For example, the Steenbokpan farming community in the Waterberg, who were forcefully evicted during apartheid and post-apartheid from their land and means of subsistence, have gravesites dating back as early as 1918. Most of the farms with farm dwellers’ gravesites have been turned into game farms with very limited or prohibited access to gravesites. Graves and ancestral sites have also been destroyed by farm owners and mining companies. This is a key site of contestation in the region. The land claims related to ancestral sites point toward possible alternate ways of relating to the land.
Thirdly, the project utilised of participatory arts-based methods in a collaborative project with the Waterberg Women’s Advocacy Organisation and the Khulumani Support Group. A body-mapping method was used through a multi-day workshop with 12 participants from WWAO to explore the impacts of coal mining, coal energy production and climate change on women’s bodies and communities to centre women’s situated and embodied knowledge and support women’s existing self-organisation and resistance to extractivism. Participants reflected on the importance of a space for voicing their embodied experiences. Through painting, one participant, who shared her story of gender-based violence remarked, ‘I was able to express what is inside and get some relief.’ This process also supported women to form bonds with each other. One participant observed that ‘by sharing and coming together as women, we can heal’. Workshop participants used the process to speak back to corporations through a public dialogue and exhibition in Shongoane village. The body maps will be transformed into a storybook and website of the women’s lives and their struggles against coal and climate change for further advocacy work. This collaborative work reveals how body mapping as a form of feminist, creative research practice can be used to align with and elevate existing, community-led activism.
