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Aliens' on the Copperbelt

Zambianisation, Nationalism and Non-Zambian Africans in the Mining Industry

Bibliographic Data

ID4604335
AuthorsDuncan Money (0000-0003-3412-1989, International Studies Group, University of the Free State, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume45
Issue5
Pages859-875
Publication date2019-09-03
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057070.2019.1658406
OpenAlexW2977805300
LanguageEN
Citations received10

Following Zambia’s independence in 1964, several thousand non-Zambian Africans were identified and progressively removed from the Copperbelt mines as part of a state-driven policy of ‘Zambianisation’. Curiously, this process has been overlooked among the multitude of detailed studies on the mining industry and Zambianisation, which is usually regarded as being about the removal of the industrial colour bar on the mines. This article challenges that perspective by examining the position and fate of non-Zambian African mineworkers, beginning with patterns of labour recruitment established in the colonial period and through the situation following independence to the protracted economic decline in the 1980s. In it I make two arguments. First, Zambian nationalism and the creation of Zambian citizenship were accompanied on the Copperbelt by the identification and exclusion of non-Zambians, in contrast to a strand in the literature which stresses that exclusionary nationalism and xenophobia are relatively recent developments. Second, one of the central and consistent aims of Zambianisation was the removal of ‘alien’ Africans from the mining industry and their replacement with Zambian nationals. This was a key objective of the Zambian government, supported by the mineworkers’ union

Citizenship · Colonialism · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Emigration · Government (linguistics · Independence (probability theory · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Racism · Sociology · State (computer science · Xenophobia · African history and culture studies · Law · South African History and Culture

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Citations per year1.67
Citation span2020 - 2026 (7)
Highly citedNo

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