Analysis of the Imaginative Geographies of Climate Smart Mining and their re‐imagination by the Khuthala environmental care group (KECG) in Mpumalanga province, South Africa

Abstract

The World Bank has been inserting capital in various developing states at the onset of the decolonization period. The nature of this involvement within the context of extractives in these spaces remains understudied through the postcolonial lens. This study fills this void by examining the World Bank's Climate Smart Mining and counter‐responses by the Khuthala Environmental Care Group. Utilizing Said's Imaginative Geographies and discourse analysis, this study shows that the World Bank's CSM documents reproduce the development rhetoric of the 1950s and these values are not shared by local communities. This research suggests that the World Bank needs to substantively alter its agenda for meaningful social and ecological reform.