Mineworkers in Zambia: Labour and Political Change in Post-Colonial Africa

by Miles Larmer

Overview

The received view of Zambia's mineworkers is of a reactionary body unable and unwilling to shape progressive politics in post-colonial Zambia. Miles Larmer seeks to use a whole range of little-used sources to dispel this myth. Extensive interviews with mineworkers and their wives reveals a working-class consciousness and a whole host of social and economic expectations that shaped their attitude towards political change. Mineworkers in Zambia gives this misunderstood group a place in the movement for political reform which culminated in the transition to multiparty democracy in 1991, and in so doing draws important lessons for the wider social and political history of post-colonial Africa.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350175235
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/20/2020
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Miles Larmer is Lecturer in Post-1945 Global History at Sheffield Hallam University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements – vii
Map of the Zambian Copperbelt – ix
Introduction – 1
1. Mineworkers and Political Change in Northern Rhodesia, 1935-1964 – 29
2. Zambia's Political Economy, 1964-1991 – 42
3. From Independence to the One-Party State, 1964-1972 – 59
4. Talking in Dark Corners, 1973-1981 – 97
5. 'The Hour Has Come at the Pit', 1981-1991 – 134
6. 'To Die a Little': Political and Economic Liberalisation, 1991-2005 – 173
Conclusion – 191
Notes – 205
Appendix 1: Interviewees – 237
Appendix 2: Zambian Copper Mining Industry Statistics – 249
Bibliography – 251
Glossary – 264
Index – 267