Contesting the just transition from the Waterberg Coalfield: grounded socio-ecological possibilities for (co)habitable futures

Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change through fossil-fuel reliance has necessitated decarbonisationon a global scale. The “Just Transition,” as a concept embedded in a particular and shiftingdiscursive context, weighs up environmental ambitions against material livelihood impacts, andis increasingly gaining significant political currency. It is, however, often implemented in atop-down techno-managerial manner that flattens out localised socio-ecological and contextuallyspecific dynamics. By thinking from the Waterberg Coalfield in Limpopo, South Africa, weexplore the tensions between local livelihoods dependent on fossil-fuel capital and those that arehistorically foreclosed and are at increased future risk due to the South African government’scontinued commitment to coal economies. By embedding debates about future “justice” inthe history of injustice, racialised dispossession and enclosure, we explore how the politicalecologies of land, water and energy are folded into a politics of a just transition from below. Agranular and relational analysis of these divergent livelihoods and their socio-ecological basesoffers the possibility for transformative pathways of “just” futures for the Waterberg and beyond.