2025-11-272025-11-272024https://hdl.handle.net/10566/21479This thesis investigates how contestations over chieftaincy affect the authority of the institution and its relations with people and land, and vice versa. Using a case study method, the study applies the case of the Bakgatla ba Mmakau, an impoverished community situated within the mineral rich North West platinum belt. The Bakgatla ba Mmakau are engaged in a century-long lineage dispute spanning from 1892 to now. In 2017, the state dispute mechanism formally transferred chiefly power from one faction to another. The study specifically examines the processes of transfer of chiefly power and the establishment of a new political authority shedding light on the construction of chieftaincy. The research is informed by state formation theory, integrating the revisionist history perspective with state formation through the production of property and citizenship approach, and political economy theory. It employs a qualitative research method grounded within critical social science research philosophy in order to make links between the concrete and abstract aspects of chieftaincy politics. The thesis makes four arguments regarding the Bakgatla ba Mmaku lineage dispute. First, the contestations led to the fracture of the chieftaincy. Second, this fracture produced a new chieftaincy and simultaneously reproduced the old chieftaincy, resulting in the establishment of two competing institutions: the new institution and the old institution. Third, rural people navigate both citizenship and subjecthood to access mining economic resources and maintain their customary entitlements, despite their ascription as ‘subjects’ of the chief by traditional leadership laws. Fourth, changes in land ownership and increasing land scarcity are redefining the conventional authority of the chieftaincy. The evidence from this case suggests that the production and legitimation of chieftaincy in South Africa are not confined within the bounds of state bureaucratic control. The ideals of rural people regarding what constitutes a legitimate chieftaincy are influential and are involved in reshaping the institution as much as the state mechanism does. In conclusion, the state ideals of custom and chieftaincy remain in conflict with rural people’s ideals of chieftaincy. This clash is significantly shaping the constant production of chiefly authority within the local state.enContestationschieftaincyproduction of authoritylandpeoplepolitical jurisdictionThesis