All That Glitters: Mining, Society and the Environment in Southern Africa since the 19th century - Semester 1 - HIS00222H

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Module summary

The recent upsurge in the global demand for strategic minerals such as tantalum, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements has seen global powers such as the US, China, Russia, and India manoeuvring to secure long-term mining deals with minerals-rich African countries. This contemporary scramble for African mineral deposits has brought Africa’s long history of mineral extraction and its different legacies to the fore. This module critically examines the history of mineral resource extraction in Southern Africa since the 19th century, providing students with an in-depth exploration of the region’s cutting-edge labour, social, and environmental history.

We will explore how mining turned Southern Africa into an arena for global extractive capital, triggering massive regional population movements, the rise of mining centres which became sites of new modernities and workplace/political identities, and reshaping societies and environments. We will also consider how the global geopolitics engendered by the demand for strategic minerals played out in the region.

This Special Subject Area is split into two Modules taught over two semesters. Semester 1 focuses on themes covering the period from the 19th century to the Second World War. Semester 2 covers the period from the Second World War to the post-colonial period. Students will engage with a diverse range of primary source materials, including archival records, oral histories, photographs, documentary films, and media sources, among others. Students will use specific case studies to explore and analyse the applicability of concepts and theories such as “resource curse”, “conflict minerals”, “blood diamonds”, and ‘extractivism.

Related modules

Students taking this module must also take the second part in Semester 2.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 1 2025-26

Module aims

The aims of this module are:

• To introduce students to in depth study of a specific historical topic using primary and secondary material;
• To enable students to explore the topic through discussion and writing; and
• To enable students to evaluate and analyse primary sources.

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

• Grasp key themes, issues and debates relevant to the topic being studied;
• Have acquired knowledge and understanding about that topic;
• Be able to comment on and analyse original sources;
• Be able to relate the primary and secondary material to one another; and
• Have acquired skills and confidence in close reading and discussion of texts and debates.

Module content

Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1 and a 3-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of semester 1. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW). Students prepare for and participate in eight three-hour seminars in all.

Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:

1. Mining and Metallurgy among Indigenous African Societies
2. The Minerals Revolution in Southern Africa
3. Chinese Indentured Labour on South African Gold Mines
4. The 1922 Rand Revolt: Black Workers and White Working-Class Racism
5. Migrant Identities, Worker Solidarities, and Mine-worker Violence
6. Labour Migrancy and Masculinity
7. Mining and Occupational Health
8. Coal, Capital and Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

For formative work, students will produce a text commentary.

The summative assessment will consist of two parts, to be submitted together:
a) Two text commentaries of 500-750 words; and
b) One 1,500-word essay.

The commentaries comprise 50% and the essay 50% of the overall mark for this module. Summative assessments will be due in the assessment period.

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Module feedback

Following their formative task, students will typically receive written feedback that will include comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission.

Work will be returned to students in their seminars and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their formative work during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see theStatement on Feedback.

For summative assessment tasks, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see theStatement of Assessment.

Indicative reading

For semester time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:

• Hecht, Gabrielle, Residual Governance: How South Africa Foretells Planetary Futures. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2023.
• Moodie, Dunbar T. (with Vivienne Ndatshe), Going for Gold: Men, Mines, and Migration. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
• Mususa, Patience, There Used to Be Order: Life on the Copperbelt after the Privatisation of the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines. Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Press, 2022.