“Now everyone will learn to appreciate Tshibelabela”

The moral economy of dogmeat, cultural heritage and ethnic ‘tribalism’ in Lubumbashi, DRC

Bibliographic Data

ID24019252
AuthorsSarah O’neill (0000-0001-8807-0991, Royal Museum for Central Africa, corresponding author)
Year2026
Publication date2026-08-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1466-1381 • E-ISSN: 1741-2714
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14661381261475850
OpenAlexW7201844730
LanguageEN
References cited16

“It’s excellent meat that should be widely available for sale,” argue young Kasaian inhabitants of Lubumbashi, DRC. Some even propose its recognition as cultural heritage. Many non-Kasaian residents, however, express outrage: “they are shedding the blood of dogs in public, saying that soon everyone will be eating dogs like them.” In this context, dogmeat ( Tshibelabela) emerges as a politically charged site through which interethnic tensions, moral boundaries, and competing ontologies are articulated. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article shows how a seemingly mundane food practice becomes a locus of symbolic struggle. Drawing on insights from multispecies and postcolonial scholarship, it argues that the ambiguous status of dogs—as both companions and edible beings—destabilises moral boundaries and exposes competing understandings of human–animal relations. These tensions generate mistrust, surveillance, and rumours, revealing how food and eating practices become arenas of contestation over power, identity, and belonging.

Cultural heritage · Ethnic group · Ethnography · Globalization · Moral economy · The Symbolic · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology · Wildlife Ecology and Conservation