Mining, welfare and urbanisation: the wavering urban character of Zambia's Copperbelt

Abstract

This article focuses on the character of life and social welfare services in the mining towns of what was once the most urbanised country in central Africa. The services provided by mining companies varied over the years: from minimal at the time of the industry's establishment in the 1920s; to a period of largesse between the 1950s and the late 1970s; and then a slow decline following the slide in world copper prices. The withdrawal of the mines from welfare provision from the mid-1990s to the present has radically altered not only people's well-being, but also the character of the urban areas, leading to the observation that towns have become like ‘villages’.

Acknowledgements

This article is part of PhD research supported by a Wadsworth African Fellowship (Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research) and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant No. 63222, Ethnographies of the marginal. F. Ross, grantholder). The paper does not necessarily reflect the views of either the Wenner Gren Foundation or the NRF.

Notes

1. Bemba is the lingua franca of the Copperbelt.

2. Bank (2011) documents analogous contested place-making between urban modernity and rurality in the sub-urbanisation of Duncan Village in the South African city of East London.

3. A larger portion of this income was allocated to developing commercial farming and infrastructure for white settlement in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) connected with the 1953 formation of the Central African Federation consisting of Nyasaland (Malawi) and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia).

4. N/Western Province elders urge FQM to build modern structures. The Post, 8 February 2011.