Living for the City: Social Change and Knowledge Production in the Central African Copperbelt

Miles Larmer

doi:10.1017/9781108973120

Living for the City

Social Change and Knowledge Production in the Central African Copperbelt

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Miles Larmer, University of Oxford

Publisher:: Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:: August 2021
Print publication year:: 2021
Online ISBN:: 9781108973120
DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108973120
Creative Commons:: This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/creativelicenses

Subjects:: Area Studies, African Studies, History, African History, Economic History

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Living for the City is a social history of the Central African Copperbelt, considered as a single region encompassing the neighbouring mining regions of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Haut Katanga and Zambian Copperbelt mine towns have been understood as the vanguard of urban 'modernity' in Africa. Observers found in these towns new African communities that were experiencing what they wrongly understood as a transition from rural 'traditional' society – stable, superstitious and agricultural – to an urban existence characterised by industrial work discipline, the money economy and conspicuous consumption, Christianity, and nuclear families headed by male breadwinners supported by domesticated housewives. Miles Larmer challenges this representation of Copperbelt society, presenting an original analysis which integrates the region's social history with the production of knowledge about it, shaped by both changing political and intellectual contexts and by Copperbelt communities themselves. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

'This is a superb book, a model for combining social history with the history of knowledge production. It not only offers fresh perspectives on the Central African Copperbelt, but sets an example for a better understanding and a nuanced interpretation of broader transformations in Africa since the 1950s.'

Andreas Eckert - Humboldt University Berlin

'This book helps us see the central African Copperbelt in a new light. Company towns were fulcrums for new forms of thought, engines for the creation of new kinds of culture, incubators for new literary projects, forcing-houses for new kinds of politics. Grounded on research in a wide range of archives, and drawing from oral interviews in Zambia and the Congo, Miles Larmer’s impressive book gives labor history new dimensions, helping us glimpse the intellectual worlds where miners lived.'

Derek Peterson - University of Michigan

‘… an excellent book, that is innovative in its border-crossing approach of the Central African Copperbelt, in its combination of social and intellectual history, and in its incisive critique of mining industry, during and after colonial rule.’

Geert Castryck Source: H-Soz-Kult

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Living for the City

Social Change and Knowledge Production in the Central African Copperbelt

This Book has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.

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Contents

Living for the City
pp i-ii

Living for the City - Title page
pp iii-iii

Copyright page
pp iv-iv

Dedication
pp v-vi

Contents
pp vii-vii

Figures
pp viii-viii

Acknowledgements
pp ix-xii

Abbreviations and Acronyms
pp xiii-xvi

Introduction
pp 1-33

1 - Imagining the Copperbelts
pp 34-64

2 - Boom Time – Revisiting Capital and Labour in the Copperbelt
pp 65-95

3 - Space, Segregation and Socialisation
pp 96-128

4 - Political Activism, Organisation and Change in the Late Colonial Copperbelt
pp 129-161

5 - Gendering the Copperbelt
pp 162-194

6 - Nationalism and Nationalisation
pp 195-226

7 - Copperbelt Cultures from the Kalela Dance to the Beautiful Time
pp 227-260

8 - Decline and Fall: Crisis and the Copperbelt, 1975–2000
pp 261-291

9 - Remaking the Land: Environmental Change in the Copperbelt’s History, Present and Future
pp 292-320

Conclusion
pp 321-335

References
pp 336-371

Index
pp 372-380

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Living for the City

Social Change and Knowledge Production in the Central African Copperbelt

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