...Preface and Acknowledgments<subtitle>Grabbing the Cat by Its Tail, or How the Cat Grabbed Me</subtitle> ...

... tailings dust Ernest Cole remediation heritage ...

... A century of mining turned South Africa's Rand inside out, producing colossal tailings piles that bisect the city of Johannesburg. Apartheid intensified the discrimination wrought by mine dust, placing millions of Black residents downwind of the dump band. Still today, winter winds blow...

... Mine waste areas in Johannesburg are so colossal that you can see them from space. These giant tailings piles have structured the city's spatial layout and infrastructures since its inception, with Black residents shunted downwind and downstream from the toxic mountains, a situation that still...

... the land under the tailings piles as prime real estate, ripe for development: the key to making the city whole. This puts remediation at the center of debates about urban planning. As mines shut down, revolving doors spin mine officials and engineers into remediation consulting firms that profit from...

... inveighs against aristocratic privilege and the prevailing property regime, themes that were a constant in his public pronouncements. Belzu invoked the contrast between the disinherited classes and suffering common people in ponchos, on the one hand, and the oligarchy of gentlemen dressed in tails...

... people in ponchos, on the one hand, and the oligarchy of gentlemen dressed in tails, on the other. The radical discourse associated with Belzu signified a historic rupture. It was with his government that the popular urban groups of artisans, small traders, and common people were first recognized...