Colonial Zambia Research Articles

Killing tsetse and/or saving wildlife? A multispecies assemblage in colonial Zambia (1895–1959)

This article investigates the problem of the tsetse fly and the trypanosomiasis disease it conveys as a transforming multispecies assemblage in colonial Zambia from the late nineteenth century until 1959. Based on archival research, it analyses the tsetse fly (Glossina morsitans) as a moving target; not only a mobile and elusive insect but also a moving field of knowledge bringing multiple stakeholders into dialogue. It shows that tsetse control and wildlife conservation emerged together in colonial Zambia, in conflicting but also synergising ways, and that the association of large mammals to G. morsitans laid the ground for their classification as killable or preservable species. In the crossed influence of diverse regional colonial expertise, the article finds that the complex multispecies relations between the tsetse fly, the trypanosomes, wildlife, vegetation, humans and cattle, mediated and enacted by colonial experts and others, shaped institutions, policies and landscapes.

War and Society in Colonial Zambia, 1939–1953 , by Alfred Tembo

War and Society in Colonial Zambia, 1939–1953 , by Alfred Tembo

Women and Mining in Zambia: Opportunities and Challenges

The rise of urbanisation in colonial Zambia particularly on the Copperbelt province is associated with the discovery of minerals in the early 1900s. The widespread discovery of minerals and exploitation of the same minerals required labour both skilled and unskilled labour. Skilled labour was drawn from overseas while unskilled labour was available from the local population. During the colonial period, the predominant labour force on the mines were men while women were by law were not allowed to enter towns during the early years of urbanization or to take residence in urban areas anywhere in the country. Early researchers commented that early African migration to mine towns essentialised as men’s wage work, depended on agricultural and reproductive labour performed by women, who officially remained in rural areas. Local labour migrations were highly restricted and employment of women in urban areas was scarce or none existent in the initial stages of urbanisation.
 Skilled and none skilled labour for women employees on the mines initially did not exist in the colonial period because they (women) were not viewed as important labourers needed for production in the mines. This restriction of women in urban areas created a legacy of gender inequalities in almost all the sectors of labour employment and more so in the mining sector during the colonial period. Consequently, one can argue that since the colonial period to date, women have been a minority group in the mines occupying low positions in their majority compared to men and very few women hold executive positions in the mining sector.
 Employment during the colonial period was not easily found due to clear discrimination. The end result of this type of discrimination in employment resulted in few or no women at all in some instances in the mines. With passage of time, women were allowed into towns and on the mines but formal jobs for women were difficult to find. The current state of gender inequalities in the mines in Zambia today is a carryover from the colonial period. Currently, training institutions for mine workers such as universities, colleges and technical institute are still dominated by male students.
 The above situation eventually results into a gendered labour force in the mines with men occupying highly skilled jobs while women dominate the low skilled and non-skilled jobs in mining conglomerates. The current gender inequalities on the mines are historically embedded in the mines as patriarchal institutions owned and ran by the same men. Consequently, very few women are in the executive positions in mines and even very few do own mines.

Namwali Serpell's The Old Drift as a Postcolonial Text: A Semiotic, Linguistic and Onomastic Analysis

This essay analyses Namwali Serpell’s seminal novel The Old Drift from a postcolonial perspective. In pursuing this goal, the essay utilises some aspects of postcolonial theory, semiotics, onomastics and linguistics. In particular, it looks at how Serpell reinterprets the history of colonial Zambia as projected and interpreted by colonial writers. The findings suggest that the novel epitomises a new drift in Zambian literature. The novel problematises the views of the imperial centre as exemplified in colonial literature and suggests that the colonisers used the gun, fraud, deception, language and names as some of the means of subjugating the local people and dispossessing them of their land. Therefore, the whole colonial enterprise was pursued for the benefit of the white settlers at the expense of the local people and was motivated by greed, selfishness and self-aggrandisement.

The African Participation and Experiences in the First and Second World Wars in Northern Rhodesia: A Historical Perspective 1914–1948

Unlike existing studies that examined each of the two World Wars and Africans separately, this study explores African participation and experiences in the First and Second World Wars in Northern Rhodesia (colonial Zambia) together during the period, 1914–1948. A lot has been written on the history of the World Wars in colonial Africa. However, there is not much literature that focuses on African participation and experiences during the two world wars. This study is focused on the core theme, that is, the role played by Africans in both World Wars. This is the main theme that informs the study. The core theme is sub-divided into the following three sub-themes: the making of the Northern Rhodesia Police under the British South African Company, BSACo, a Chartered Company that prohibited by law from housing a standing; recruitment of personnel for the Northern Rhodesia Regiment; the role played by traditional authorities in the recruitment of ‘Askari’ – the Foot Soldiers and the ‘Tenga-Tenga’ War Carriers and the role of government propaganda while bringing to the fore African agency during both Wars. Also discussed in the study is the demobilisation process in which African servicemen – the Foot Soldiers and the ‘Tenga-Tenga’ War Carriers – felt cheated by an Empire-wide system of racial discrimination and hierarchy. Although an expanded government propaganda machinery contributed to the growth of an African political voice in Northern Rhodesia during the period, 1914–1948, that political voice neither included nor translated to much debate or discussion about the concerns of African ex-servicemen and their personal affairs. The study equally examines how their state of affairs affected the relationship between the ex-servicemen and their traditional leaders who were active in the recruitment process that brought them into the Wars in the first place. The study concludes with the re-examination of the older arguments that African servicemen did not play an active role in nationalist politics after the World Wars, and submits otherwise, that is, that they actually did.

Rural Agricultural Transition and the Role Of Settlement Schemes in Colonial Zambia: An Overview

Abstract

Roots of Contemporary Political Strategies: Ethno-Populism in Zambia during the Late Colonial Era and Early 2000s

Much scholarly work on politics in Zambia during the early 2000s stresses the role of populist mobilisations and the exploitation of ethnic language identities when explaining one of the main political developments of this period – the growing popularity of Michael Sata and his opposition party, the Patriotic Front. A common limitation of these studies is their narrow focus on the immediate context as the source of political populism and ethnic strategy. Drawing on interviews and archival and newspaper sources, this article interprets the later actions of Sata within the context of the past and demonstrates that the nature and style of the political strategies that he employed in the early 2000s were rooted in his experiences in late colonial Zambia, when he learnt the benefits of identifying oneself in ethnic language terms and engaging in worker mobilisations that were populist in character. The reappearance of ethnic and populist strategies in the early 2000s reflects a deeper connection to the past and demonstrates the long shadow of late colonial influences on contemporary Zambian politics. It also challenges the dominant periodisation in Zambian political history by drawing significant connections between different historical eras and showing how lessons learnt in one period were replicated in recognisable form in later periods.

THE RHODES-LIVINGSTONE INSTITUTE AND INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH IN NORTHERN RHODESIA (ZAMBIA), 1937-1964

This article examines the rise of interdisciplinary research in Northern Rhodesia (colonial Zambia). It does this by exploring path breaking research conducted by the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute since its founding in 1937 up to the country's attainment of independence from Britain in 1964. The article argues that the rationale for the establishment of the research institute was due to the pressing need for knowledge owing to the emergence of social problems related to urban growth and labour migration by the 1930s. While not pretending to be an exhaustive survey of the work of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, the article notes that research outcomes from the Institute were utilised by the colonial administration and other stakeholders such as mining companies on the Copperbelt in order to understand the human situation in the country. By the 1950s, however, the Institute had become at variance with Government officials as the latter suspected many researchers of being sympathetic to the African political cause.

Speak, Friend, and Enter? Fieldwork Access and Anthropological Knowledge Production on the Copperbelt

The ‘gate’ has been a recurring metaphor for moments of access and denial in ethnographic fieldwork. However, access challenges during fieldwork represent not only ‘gates’ opening up or foreclosing scientific opportunity: rather, they tell us something about fieldwork as a collection of scientific practices, and, more precisely, how practices of power mark the process of anthropological knowledge production and anthropology as a social science. Based on fieldwork in Luanshya from 2015 to 2016, the study of metatexts from ethnographies on Zambia’s copper mines, archival research and personal communication with Copperbelt scholars, I argue that ethnographic fieldwork has been able to challenge persisting power structures and social hierarchies in colonial and post-colonial Zambia. Similarly, as I will explain, ethnographic fieldwork made the anthropologist a social scientist who was being ‘chased’ by the practices of power that structured his or her prime work place – that is, the field. I set out as a historian of social anthropology, retracing how anthropologists on the Copperbelt gained or were denied access to their field sites from the studies of the Rhodes–Livingstone Institute (RLI), founded in 1937, to my own ethnographic research project up to 2017. Moments of fieldwork access and denial have occurred in this region in an especially clear form. I seek to contribute to the historiography of the Copperbelt as an anthropological field site and the understanding of anthropology as a social science. It is a science that is capable of illustrating power hierarchies through passing moments of gaining fieldwork access, continuous negotiations to maintain it, and prolonged efforts, ending in denial. These instances are not mere embellishments to be relegated to the introductions, appendices and postscripts of ethnographies or retrospective assessments of academic careers. Fieldwork access should be central within every reflection on the production of anthropological knowledge and the nature of anthropology as a social science.

Mining for Goals

This article explores the complex relationship between football (soccer) and social change in late colonial Zambia (formerly known as Northern Rhodesia). Based on archival and oral sources collected over two years in Zambia, it argues that by the time the colonial state and mining authorities expanded access to the game through new postwar welfare schemes intended to “detribalize” Africans and control them more effectively, black miners on the Copperbelt, one of colonial Africa's richest industrial areas, had already found ways to make British football their own. Self-administered leagues of black workers and sport administrators entertained crowds and provided ethnically diverse Zambians with a valuable opportunity to create new urban social networks, communities, and identities. Ordinary fans founded organized supporters' clubs that attempted to make coaches, club directors, and mine management accountable to the public by demanding success on the pitch as well as greater access to facilities and equipment. Assertive managerial participation in the game enabled some men to gain leadership experience that indirectly helped fuel the growing struggle for political independence. This study demonstrates how and why the sociability of miners and other wage-earning Africans had important political and cultural implications for sport and society in colonial Zambia.

The Lure of Katanga Copper: Tanganyika Concessions Limited and the Anatomy of Mining and Mine Exploration 1899–1906

This article provides a rare opportunity to follow the inception of mining and mine exploration economy in the first years of the European presence in colonial Zambia and Katanga as seen through the eyes of prospectors and mining experts working for the London-based company Tanganyika Concessions Limited. It draws on company records as well as the personal records of the early company employees who worked in North Western Rhodesia and adjoining Katanga until 1906. The most thought-provoking documents include diaries, letters and photographs, which depict the organisation and processes of early mining work, modes of mine exploration, and relations within the first mining communities and between white management and African labour. The wide range of available materials makes the Tanganyika Concessions a relevant case study; they offer a fuller picture of the inception of European mining and mine exploration in North Western Rhodesia and Katanga than is available elsewhere. Taken as a whole, they provide insight into the operation of colonising processes: in particular how these processes took place, why they were considered desirable by various interest groups, and the impact that these processes had on physical and human environments in parts of North Western Rhodesia and Katanga.

Anti Anti-Colonialism: Vernacular Press and Emergent Possibilities in Colonial Zambia

AbstractAfrican newspapers published in vernacular languages, particularly papers sponsored by colonial governments, have been understudied. A close reading of their contents and related archival sources provides insights into diverse ways in which the colonized framed and made claims. New kinds of claims were mediated by the government-sponsored vernacular press no less than by nationalists. Just as vernacularism was not nativism, African aspirations that posed no direct challenge to the colonial order did not necessarily entail mimicry. I show also how Europeans who debated a newspaper for Africans in the 1930s Zambia voiced diverse approaches to print culture, addressing a variety of objectives. The newspaper that emerged,Mutende, was replaced by provincial newspapers in the 1950s, and I focus on one of these: the Chinyanja-languageNkhani za kum'mawa, published under African editorship in Eastern Province between 1958 and 1965. Its modes of addressing African publics were neither nationalist nor colonial in any straightforward senses. Its editors and readers deliberated on what it meant to be from the province in an era of labor migration, how African advancement and dependence on Europeans were to be envisaged, and how relationships between women and men should be reconfigured. To hold divergent views on a world in flux, they had to keep something constant, and the order of governance itself remained beyond dispute. But this did not preclude emergent possibilities. The newspaper's columns and letters to the editor reveal claims on novel opportunities and constraints of a sort that mainstream nationalist historiography, with its meta-narrative of anti-colonialism, has rendered invisible.

Authorizing the “Natives”: Governmentality, Dispossession, and the Contradictions of Rule in Colonial Zambia

British colonial rule in Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries straddled a contradiction between promoting radical social transformation and maintaining political order. This article explores the relationship between changing techniques of rule and the stability of rule; in particular, the proletarianization and dispossession of African populations and production of an extractive economy in colonial Zambia. The 1920s saw the transition from charter rule by the British South Africa Company to the Colonial Office and the end of widespread rural unrest. Using archival and secondary sources, two key interventions marked a new mode of governing and spatial reorganization of power are examined: indirect rule through Native authorities and the constitution of Native reserves. These interventions sought to rework the political landscape and align relations between men and things in ways that furthered the aims of both extractive capitalism and colonial rule. The consequences and limitations of these new forms of intervention are examined by bringing together Marxist ideas of dispossession and the contradictions of colonial rule and Foucault's work on governmental power. In the final sections, a wider set of relations and processes beyond the state that worked to produce economic forms of subjectivity are explored, before arguing that the hallmark of techniques of rule that became widespread in British colonial sub-Saharan Africa is that they stabilized dispossession and worked to resolve central contradictions of colonial rule.

Applied Anthropology or the Anthropology of Modernity? Max Gluckman's Vision of Southern African Society, 1939–1947

This article analyses the work of Max Gluckman, the well-known South African-born British social anthropologist during his years in colonial Zambia (Northern Rhodesia). It argues that Gluckman's Northern Rhodesian writings are best understood as an extension of his powerful critique of segregation in South Africa, ‘Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand’. Instead of appearing as a naïve attempt at ‘applied anthropology’, his work from this period in Northern Rhodesia is as an attempt to imagine the many different futures available to Africans, futures that depended upon the way different African societies had been incorporated into the world economic system. This understanding opens up the possibility of viewing British social anthropology from this period not only as a reflection of the ‘colonial encounter’, but also as offering an important contribution to the analysis of the ways that modernity has had an impact upon the lives of Africans and the futures available to them.

Living the end of empire: politics and society in late colonial Zambia

Building on the foundational work of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, the essays in this collective volume offer a picture of the late colonial period in Zambia. The volume is based on untapped archival material and sources that have emerged in recent years and throws new light on some of the historical trajectories that the teleological gaze of nationalist scholars tended to ignore. An introduction by the editors is followed by a background article on Northern Rhodesia's post-war period (1945-1953) by Andrew D. Roberts. The next four chapters deal with the polyphony of African nationalism in the country: Giacomo Macola on the formation of ZANC/UNIP, Walima T. Kalusa on traditional rulers and nationalists in the 1950s, Marja Hinfelaar on the realization of a Catholic social doctrine in the context of a rise in nationalism, and Kenneth P. Vickery on labour, politics and Dixon Konkola. The third part of the book deals with the unsettled world of settlers: Ian Phimister on white miners on the Copperbelt, Joanna Lewis on David Livingstone and the 1955 centenary commemorations, Jan-Bart Gewald on fears and fantasies in the 1950s, Friday Mufuzi on Indian political activism, and Joan M. Haig on Hindu life in 1950s Northern Rhodesia. The final two chapters deal with participating observers: Christopher M. Annear on Ian Cunnison's 'fishing area', Mweru-Luapula, and Andrew J. DeRoche on Frances Bolton, Margaret Tibbetts and US relations with the Rhodesian Federation. [ASC Leiden abstract]

Ecology to Technocracy: Scientists, Surveys and Power in the Agricultural Development of Late-Colonial Zambia

This article provides an account of the transformation in agricultural development expertise that took place in late-colonial Zambia. Frustration with the slow pace of agricultural ‘improvement’ in the Native Reserves forced the socially and ecologically aware approach to rural development fostered during the 1930s–1940s, to give way to the technocratic model now associated with the green revolution agriculture and the ‘developmental state’. Through an exploration of these changes, the article seeks to advance ongoing debates concerning the interrelationship between knowledge, intervention, expertise and power in rural development. It focuses on research undertaken by Department of Agriculture (DOA) staff on the Tonga Plateau in Zambia's Southern Province during the 1940s and 1950s. Being both a major maize producing area and home to political organisations that challenged colonial and postcolonial rulers, the Tonga Plateau has long been the subject of concentrated scholarly enquiry. In late colonial Zambia, its political and economic importance made it a living laboratory1 for various scientists and technical experts. The article contributes to the rich historiography of agriculture on the Tonga Plateau by examining the knowledge claims behind various forms of state intervention that took place there.

Rumours of Mau Mau in Northern Rhodesia, 1950 – 1960

In 1950s Northern Rhodesia, present day Zambia, rumours abounded amongst the African population intimating that the white settlers and administration were extensively involved in witchcraft, cannibalism and blood-sucking. In turn, members of the white settler community believed very much the same with regard to the African population of the territory. The development of nationalist politics and the increasing unionization of African workers in colonial Zambia led to agitation that was matched with increasing disquiet and fears on the part of white settlers. The emergence of ‘Mau Mau’ in Kenya and rumours of ‘Mau Mau’ in Northern Rhodesia served to underscore European settler fears in Northern Rhodesia. Based on research in the National Archives of Zambia and Great Britain, this paper explores the manner in which public rumour played out in Northern Rhodesia and gave emphasis to settler fears and fantasies in the territory. Key words: Mau Mau, Northern Rhodesia, colonial rule, rumours, Zambia

Slimes and Death-Dealing Dambos: Water, Industry and the Garden City on Zambia's Copperbelt**The Wellcome Trust funded some of the research on which this article is based – University Award Grant No. 056339, ‘Mining, medicine and the body in Zambia’, 1999–2002. Thanks to Timothy Mgala of the University of Zambia's Institute for Economic and Social Research for assistance with the interviews.

From 1927 to 1930 Roan Antelope Mine in colonial Zambia experienced a high death rate, which disrupted the recruitment of both European and African miners. This mortality crisis stimulated subsequent plans for urbanisation on the Copperbelt, which emerged from interwar thinking about city planning, tropical sanitation and malaria control. Mining industrialists, medical experts and government officials evoked a vision of the ‘garden city’ to foster an image of concern for the health and welfare of their workers; and the mastery of water dominated their garden city plans for the Copperbelt towns. Malaria experts and mining engineers radically altered rivers and wetlands to reduce flooding of mine shafts and limit mosquito-breeding habitat. The result was a highly controlled medicalised and industrialised environment that expanded with the growth of the Copperbelt towns. Yet water in its material and sacred forms constantly reasserted its power, disrupting industrial and medical control. This article focuses on the event that initiated this pattern of control and disruption – the Luanshya River Snake episode, 1927–1930. The history of stories about this vengeful snake spirit can provide insights about African and European responses to the power of water on the Copperbelt.

Rumours of Mau Mau in Northern Rhodesia, 1950-1960

In 1950s Northern Rhodesia, present day Zambia, rumours abounded amongst the African population intimating that the white settlers and administration were extensively involved in witchcraft, cannibalism and blood-sucking. In turn, members of the white settler community believed very much the same with regard to the African population of the territory. The development of nationalist politics and the increasing unionization of African workers in colonial Zambia led to agitation that was matched with increasing disquiet and fears on the part of white settlers. The emergence of ‘Mau Mau’ in Kenya and rumours of ‘Mau Mau’ in Northern Rhodesia served to underscore European settler fears in Northern Rhodesia. Based on research in the National Archives of Zambia and Great Britain, this paper explores the manner in which public rumour played out in Northern Rhodesia and gave emphasis to settler fears and fantasies in the territory.

Counter-urbanisation on the Zambian Copperbelt? Interpretations and Implications

For the past 20 years, the population of Zambia has been gradually ruralising, or de-urbanising. For a country which was once seen as emblematic of the process of African urbanisation, and was very often cited (erroneously) as being among the first in sub-Saharan Africa to have reached the stage where over half the population was urban, this is a dramatic shift. This paper has both an empirical and theoretical element. Empirically, it seeks to demonstrate the scale and pattern of the shift within Zambia through careful examination of census data which, although occasionally problematic, are generally sufficiently accurate to provide a basis for analysis. It is shown that counter-urbanisation is mainly characteristic of Copperbelt Province, but that other urban centres have also experienced a marked downturn in their growth rates. Changes in fertility and mortality rates have played a part, but the most important factor is shown to be shifts in migration patterns, with many centres clearly experiencing net out-migration, including that of some urban-born people, as a response to urban economic decline. These dynamics are also discussed theoretically in relation to longstanding debates in African urban studies about the implications of urbanisation and migration dynamics, which date back to the early days of the famous Rhodes-Livingstone Institute which was based in colonial Zambia.