Abstract In the postapartheid South African economic landscape, the idea of “empowerment” has been given special meaning in the concept “black economic empowerment,” or BEE. BEE serves as a vehicle for the transformation of the South African economy in general by promoting, amongst other things, increased black ownership and management of businesses, skills development and rural community development. These empowerment aspirations are also pursued in the mining industry in terms of the Mining Charter. The development of mining communities is one of the main features of empowerment in the mining industry. An analysis of the various versions of the Mining Charter shows a certain progression in the approach to the empowerment and development of rural mining communities: There is an increased emphasis on the poverty still faced by these communities, years after the introduction of the first Mining Charter. The question is whether the increased emphasis will mean much for mining communities. This article argues that the empowerment of mining communities in terms of the Mining Charter can be situated in the development paradigm and is subjected to the politics of development. For the purposes of this article, the politics of development refer to the underlying political and ideological assumptions of the idea of development, which have consequences for how a development problem is framed and the development beneficiary is represented. Inevitably, the problem faced by development beneficiaries is reduced to mere poverty, showing how the politics of development will affect how development solutions are constructed. Regarding the Mining Charter specifically, the politics of development causes uncertainty as to who may benefit from community development initiatives. The inability to identify or demarcate the mining community accurately means that the drafters of the Mining Charter can only employ poverty alleviation rhetoric. The rhetoric creates expectations with mining communities that mining companies cannot meet, placing significant pressure on the already volatile relationship between mining companies and mining communities.

中文翻译：

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三部采矿宪章和一份草案：南非采矿业的发展政治与修辞如何使社区陷入贫困

摘要在种族隔离之后的南非经济形势中，“赋权”概念在“黑人经济赋权”或“黑人经济赋权”概念中具有特殊含义。BEE通过促进除其他外，增加黑人对企业的所有权和管理，技能发展和农村社区发展，成为整个南非经济转型的工具。在采矿业中，根据《采矿宪章》也追求这些赋权愿望。采矿社区的发展是采矿业赋权的主要特征之一。对《采矿宪章》各版本的分析表明，在增强农村采矿社区的权能和发展​​的方法上已取得了一定进展：人们越来越重视这些社区仍然面临的贫困，第一个《采矿宪章》出台数年后。问题是，重点的增加对采矿社区是否有重大意义。本文认为，根据《采矿宪章》赋予采矿社区权力可以属于发展范式，并受制于发展政治。出于本文的目的，发展政治是指发展思想的潜在政治和意识形态假设，这些假设对如何构造发展问题和代表发展受益人产生影响。不可避免地，发展受益者面临的问题被简化为纯粹的贫困，这表明发展政治将如何影响发展解决方案的构建。关于《采矿宪章》，发展政治导致不确定谁可以从社区发展计划中受益。无法准确地确定或界定采矿界，这意味着《采矿宪章》的起草者只能采用减轻贫困的措辞。这种言辞给采矿社区带来了采矿公司无法满足的期望，给采矿公司与采矿社区之间已经不稳定的关系带来了巨大压力。