Residual Governance: How South Africa Foretells Planetary Futures

Residual Governance explores the wastes of gold and uranium mining in South Africa, highlighting how communities, experts, and artists fight for infrastructural and environmental justice. It shows how mining is a prime example of residual governance, which treats people and places as waste and wastelands. Hecht's book reveals the links between race, capitalism, the state, and the environment, and how the history of mining in South Africa and the resistance to residual governance is a planetary story.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 10 November 2023
Publisher: Duke University Press

In her book, Residual Governance, Gabrielle Hecht delves into the devastating consequences of gold and uranium mining in South Africa, shedding light on the ongoing battles fought by communities, experts, and artists to secure infrastructural and environmental justice. Hecht defines residual governance as a form of governance that revolves around managing waste and discarded resources, characterized by its deliberate inefficiency and the dehumanization of people and places. Through her compelling narrative, Hecht centers the voices of those resisting residual governance and the harmful impacts of toxic mining waste, emphasizing how the history of mining in South Africa exposes the intricate connections between race, capitalism, the state, and the environment. By highlighting the resistance against residual governance, Hecht reveals how the legacy of mining in South Africa is not confined to the country's borders but is part of a global story, intricately linked to contemporary global racial capitalism and serving as a significant driver of the Anthropocene.

Weight: 572g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478020288