The translocal villagers. Mining,mobility and stratification in post-apartheid South Africa

Internal labour migration from rural areas to urban centres has been and remains one of the dominant patterns of migration in South Africa. Based on data from ethnographic field research, this paper explores the mobility patterns and translocal relations of miners in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. By considering the tension between mobility and locality in a historical and political perspective, the concept of translocality helps to explain why miners try to expand their action space and, at the same time, why they are embedded in certain places. Thus, a translocal perspective enhances the interpretation of the spatio-temporal transformations in South Africa’s mining communities and beyond, as it sheds light on the agency of mine workers, superseding merely structuralist explanations.