Railways, Railway Culture, and ‘Industrial Work Discipline’ in the Rhodesias

Abstract

The ultimate, quintessential product of industrial technology was the railway, the locomotive, the train. The most fascinating work on the social and cultural impact of the railway in the western world may be Wolfgang Schivelbusch's The Railway Journey . In Northern Rhodesia/Zambia, there are some tantalising hints of the insinuation of railways into popular culture. The anthropologist Elizabeth Colson recalls seeing in Chona Village of Southern Province, around 1949 or 1950, a performance by a famous local woman dancer, 'Binacat', of a dance called njanji or citima . Njanji comes from the English 'engine', and citima , like Masekela's stimela, is an adaptation of the English 'steam' or 'steam engine', both are Tonga terms referring to trains or railways. The author highlights the question of what might be out there in the experience of Africa, and Africans, with railways. Keywords: Africans; Njanji ; Northern Rhodesia; The Railway Journey