Central to the stories of women in my research is “hustling”, or the practice of engaging in one or more small-scale, often informal, income-generating activities . Typical examples of a hustle include distributing and selling small items (e.g. air fresheners, beauty products, herbal teas), cooking and cleaning for others, and running day cares. These activities are particularly important to Black, working-class women because they provide them with the means to support themselves and their families amidst the precarious living conditions generated and/or exacerbated by large-scale extraction of mineral resources. Inspired by Fisher et al. (2017, 2021), I conceptualize hustling as a “lifeway” – or, according to Tsing’s definition (2015), a “way of being” (p. 23) that emerges from encounters between the human and the non-human. In the context of mining-affected communities, this concept captures how the practice of hustling is embodied in Black, working-class women’s lived experiences of large-scale resource extraction. Drawing from three-months fieldwork in South Africa, I thus set out to explore the multiple and dynamic ways in which Black, working-class women engage with mining through the medium of hustling, paying particular attention to experiences of economic uncertainty and gendered forms of hardships (Stapele, 2021). In doing so, I place emphasis on the agency of women who are seeking freedom and independence in mining-affected communities. Using hustle lifeways as a lens, I am then able to discuss these women’s situated understanding of extractivism, challenging mainstream assumptions about the role of mining for development.