Skip to main content

ETHNOS_APP

Home • Search • Journals • List 0

SolweziMabanga

Ambivalent Developments on Zambia's New Mining Frontier

Bibliographic Data

ID4603620
AuthorsRohit Negi (0000-0002-7866-6940, Ambedkar University Delhi, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume40
Issue5
Pages999-1013
Publication date2014-09-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057070.2014.946215
OpenAlexW2019915896
LanguageEN
Citations received5

As African countries recover from decades of economic decline, images of the continent in popular discourses reflect growing optimism through such tropes as ‘Africa Rising’ and ‘the African Century’. Within this narrative, Zambia has been seen as a success story of neoliberal capitalism, having managed relatively high economic growth since the early 2000s. This is largely on account of foreign investments in the country's mining sector, a process that has created new frontiers of mineral extraction, including the so-called ‘New Copperbelt’ in the Solwezi District of Northwestern Province. The resultant changes are typically understood as the capital-led development of a hitherto ‘backward’ region. I interrogate this line of reasoning through a grounded exploration of mining's materiality and its imbrications with everyday life. I argue that, given the vagaries of capitalist development and past histories of economic ‘busts’, even outwardly hopeful moments like the millennial economic boom are stalked by anxieties and apprehensions of chaos, disorder and potential ruination, thereby revealing the fundamentally ambivalent nature of experiences and expectations in Zambia's new mining towns

Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Boom · Capitalism · Development economics · Economics · Economy · Frontier · Narrative · Optimism · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · History · Law · Mining and Resource Management · South African History and Culture · Geology

  • At an extractive pace

    Open Access•Rita Kesselring•The Extractive Industries and…•2018

  • Situating extraction in capitalism

    Open Access•Emma Lochery•The Extractive Industries and…•2022

  • The electricity crisis in Zambia

    Open Access•Rita Kesselring•Energy Research & Social Science•2017

  • Challenging the myth of women's empowerment

    Open Access•Lesley Johnston, Margaret Mulenga et al.•Wellbeing Space and Society•2024

  • Mineralized Urbanization in Africa in the Twenty-First Century

    Open Access•D F Bryceson, Katherine V Gough et al.•International Journal of Urban…•2022

Unique citing works5
Citations per year0,56
Citation span2017 - 2024 (8)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 5

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub
Ethnos_APP • Open Source Project • MIT License • Frontend v2.0.0 • Privacy and Cookies • API Documentation: api.ethnos.app/docs • API Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17049435 • Frontend Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17050053 • cruz.rio.br • Expectantes Misericordiae