This article examines citizen mobilisation and activism in relation to asbestos disease and litigation. Although the litigation of Cape (plc), a British company mining asbestos in South Africa, has been seen as a success story in which local activists worked alongside international lawyers and environmental campaigners to force Cape (plc) to pay compensation to 7,500 former employees with asbestos-related diseases, many claimants experienced this case as a bitter defeat.
The article explores these divergent interpretations of the same litigation case, focusing on the experiences of two towns in the Northern Cape, South Africa, namely Prieska and Griquatown and on the claimants’ perspectives.
The literature on social movements, political mobilisation, ethnic identity and millenarian movements is drawn upon in relation to the everyday economic and cultural experiences of people in these Northern Cape towns. In contrasting the relative isolation experienced by Griquatown residents with the networking and mobilisation process taking place in Prieska, the article argues that this isolation undermines citizens’ ability to frame asbestos disease litigation as an international victory and as a case of justice being done. Instead, claimants interpret their experiences in terms of local factors, including poverty, the history of asbestos payment, religious beliefs and, ultimately, in an idiom that corresponds to their ethnic identity.
In March 2003 a small community group, The Concerned People Against Asbestos (CPAA), based at Prieska in the Northern Cape, won a court case in a foreign country which may change the way in which multi-national corporations behave in the developing world. Until now the hidden costs of mining in Southern Africa have been paid for by labour.
The CPAA’s victory may also help to end that injustice. It is usual to depict communities like Prieska as dis-empowered and racked with problems yet despite its lack of resources the CPAA was able to synchronise an elaborate game of small and big politics. The group’s victory suggests that such communities have levels of political and organisational skill which given the right alignments can be irresistible.
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