ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the history of mining towns, the various theoretical frameworks employed in studying mining settlements, the history and economic development of Postmasburg and the research methods used in this book. More specifically, attention is devoted to staples theory, social disruption theory, Dutch disease, the resource curse and the role of neoliberalism in the mining context. These theoretical constructs lay the basis for discussing both the development of Postmasburg and the research methods employed in this study. We conducted three quantitative surveys: a household survey, a well-being survey and a business survey. In the household survey, we collected 1 029 completed questionnaires from households in all areas of Postmasburg: 529 from households with members employed in mining, 273 from non-mining households and 227 from the informal settlements surrounding the town.
