Memory, myths and conspiracy theories: The legacy of mine decline for women in the Free State Goldfields, South Africa

In South Africa's mining past, women were excluded from commercial mining and forbidden to live with their migrant labourer partners at the mines. By the mid-1980s, change was in the air, and by the mid-1990s restrictions on the movement of miners and their families had ended. Miners still moved around from mine to mine, but now accompanied by women. Memory studies of mining history in South Africa have been largely about the men who worked in the mines and the powerful people and organisations who influenced their lives. In this paper we look instead at the women, to see how their experiences have shaped their memories of the past. As they told their stories, we heard about their struggles and regrets after three decades of swift decline in the Goldfields. We recorded a mélange of memories, myths and conspiracy theories. Our paper contributes to the literature on the social memories of vulnerable women in a resource community. We show how their memories of the wealth and safety of the past determine their thinking about the future.