GUEST: DINEO SKOSANA, COAL MINING RESEARCHER AT WITS 

Coal mining in South Africa remains a critical driver of the country's energy supply, yet it comes at a devastating cost to rural communities. In her book No Last Place to Rest, researcher Dineo Skosana explores how mining operations have forcibly displaced people, destroyed land-based livelihoods, and even exhumed ancestral graves. Focusing on Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, Skosana reveals how the legacy of dispossession persists beyond apartheid, leading to spiritual and emotional trauma. The book challenges the notion of land as mere property, instead presenting it as a source of identity, dignity, and belonging for those affected by mining expansion.