Acknowledgements

More than most monographs, this book rests on the collective efforts of the brilliant team of researchers it has been my privilege and pleasure to work alongside during the five years (2016–2021) of the ‘Comparing the Copperbelt’ project. Each of these researchers brought distinctive insights and made major contributions to the project as a whole and to this volume in particular. Stephanie Lämmert conducted important new research on religious belief in Zambia and clarified my understanding of spiritual practice on the Copperbelt. Iva Peša, our de facto team leader in many ways, devised and implemented our interview strategy, carried out significant archival research on both sides of the border and influenced my explanation of the region’s environmental and agricultural history, presented here in Chapter 9. Benoît Henriet was vital to developing project research and partnerships in Haut-Katanga, conducting many interviews and shaping my understanding of the post-colonial university. Enid Guene identified and carried out the interviews with the painters, musicians and artists of other kinds that are central to Chapter 7. Rachel Taylor likewise conducted interviews with Katangese social welfare officers cited in Chapter 5 and helped develop my comparative analysis of community development. Together with Claire Phillips, our outstanding project administrator, they have made this work possible, though I of course bear full responsibility for all its weaknesses and errors.

Our collective work has been enabled, in turn, by our co-researchers Grant Chisapa and Pierrot Monzi Kalonga, as well as the many other Congolese and Zambian interlocutors and translators who were vital to the research process. They, like their predecessors who are among the subjects of this book, brought to the project not only their skills but also their insights and experience as members of Copperbelt societies, greatly enriching it as a result. Access to local archival sources and interviewees was equally enabled by dozens of local partners, among whom I would highlight my old friend Charles Muchimba, Research Director of the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia, former MUZ Kitwe Branch Chairman Lesa Kanyanta and Josephine Lukwesa in Mufulira.

Colleagues at the University of Lubumbashi, particularly Professors Donatien Dibwe dia Mwembu and Germain Ngoie Tshibambe, provided crucial intellectual guidance and practical assistance throughout the entire project. Colleagues in the History Department of the University of Zambia, particularly Professor Walima Kalusa, Professor Bizeck J. Phiri and (elsewhere at UNZA) Dr Hikabwa Chipande, provided valuable guidance and critical analysis of my approach. At Copperbelt University (CBU), Professors John Lungu and Owen Sichone and Drs Robby Kapesa and Edna Kabala Litana were equally important influences on our research, helping to organise the 2018 Kitwe conference and hosting presentations on the project. The study has equally been enabled by archivists at the following institutions: the African Studies Centre in Leiden; the Archives Africaines housed at the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Belgian Archives Générales du Royaume; the personnel archives of the Gécamines company in Likasi; the International Library of African Music (ILAM) at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, particularly its Director, Dr Lee Watkins; the archives of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC; the National Archives of Zambia in Lusaka; officials and councillors at Mufulira district council, who made council records available; and last but by no means least, the archivists of the ZCCM-IH archives in Ndola, particularly Lembani Chagona and Dennis Kangwa.

This research was equally made possible by my colleagues at the University of Oxford who variously encouraged me to apply to the ERC, advised on the project’s approach and enabled the lengthy period of research leave required for its implementation. Past and present colleagues and students in Oxford’s Faculty of History, the African Studies Centre and St Antony’s College to whom I am particularly indebted include: Wale Adebanwi, Harriet Aldrich, Jocelyn Alexander, Idalina Baptista, William Beinart, James Belich, Paul Betts, Peter Brooke, Nic Cheeseman, Patricia Clavin, Martin Conway, David Damtar, John Darwin, the late (and greatly missed) Jan-Georg Deutsch, Roger Goodman, Erin Gordon, Pekka Hämäläinen, Thomas Hendriks, Tim Livsey, Sebabatso Manoeli, Aileen Mooney, Rachel Murphy, Katharina Oke, David Pratten, Richard Reid, Ramon Sarró, Jonny Steinberg, Miles Tendi and John Watts.

My early ideas about this subject have since 2015 been presented at research centres, seminars and conferences. The arguments and analyses presented here have been greatly improved by the questions, comments and criticism of participants and discussants at those events and others held at the University of Oxford and elsewhere. These include the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam (March 2015); the Université Libre Brussels (December 2015); the University of Cambridge (February 2016); the UK African Studies Association conference (September 2016); the Nordic Africa Institute (December 2016); the University of Leipzig (May 2017); the European Conference on African Studies (June 2017); the Southern African Institute for Policy and Research, Lusaka and Copperbelt University, Kitwe (both July 2017); the University of Lubumbashi (January 2018); the Centre of Social Studies at the University of Coimbra (March 2019); the University of Lausanne (May 2019); the Southern African Historical Society (June 2019); the African Studies Association of the United States (November 2019); and L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Marseille (November 2019). I am grateful to the editors of the journals Labour History and Comparative Studies in Society and History for allowing the inclusion of revised material from articles published in those journals, as well as to the anonymous reviewers of those journals, and of this manuscript, for their helpful comments and criticisms.

The first draft of this manuscript was written while I was an associate member of the Institut des Mondes Africains (IMAf) in Aix-en-Provence in 2019–2020. I am particularly grateful to Henri Médard, who ensured I had working space at the Université Aix-Marseille and who, with Valérie Golaz and others, provided extraordinary support and friendship during the year in general and – at a suitable distance – during ‘confinement’ in particular. I would also like to thank Maria Marsh and her colleagues at Cambridge University Press for their unstinting support of this project.

In addition to those mentioned above, my understanding of the evidence, ideas and analysis presented here has been enormously improved by discussions with the dozens of historians and social scientists who have generously engaged with the ‘Comparing the Copperbelt’ project’s activities, events and publications. I would particularly like to thank the following individuals: Mostafa Abdelaal, Kate Alexander, David Anderson, Miguel Bandeira-Jeronimo, Karin Barber, Stefano Bellucci, Stefan Berger, Hélène Blaszkiewicz, Filip de Boeck, Gavin Bridge, Deborah Bryceson, Alexander Caramento, Geert Castryck, Jennifer Chibamba Chansa, Andreas Eckert, Nicole Eggers, Kristien Geenen, Jan-Bart Gewald, David M. Gordon, Zoe Groves, the late Patrick Harries, Gavin Hilson, Marja Hinfelaar, Nancy Rose Hunt, Bogumil Jewsiewicki, Emery Kalema, Sarah Katz-Lavigne, Erik Kennes, Rita Kesselring, Vito Laterza, Amandine Lauro, Baz Lecocq, Brian J. Leech, Emma Lochery, Reuben Loffman, David Maxwell, Tom McNamara, Duncan Money, Christian Müller, Steffi Marung, James Musonda, Patience Mususa, Joël Noret, Margaret O’Callaghan, Francesca Pugliese, Katrien Pype, Corey Ross, Benjamin Rubbers, Jeff Schauer, Sishuwa Sishuwa, Miyanda Simabwachi, Christian Straube, Martin Thomas, Thomas Turner, Sarah van Beurden, Daniela Waldburger and Luise White.