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- Convenors:
-
Miles Larmer
(University of Oxford)
Benjamin Rubbers (Université de Liège)
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- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- KH209
- Start time:
- 1 July, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
The panel will analyse the comparative historical production of political cultures in copperbelt towns to study political expression, activities. This will provide understanding of the flow of ideas within and between the two copperbelts and their influence on political cultures.
Long Abstract:
The mining towns of Zambia and DR Congo have provided classic study sites of urban African politics for a century. But as recent studies show, assumptions about the nature of African societies often distorted understanding of the processes involved in political mobilizations. To offer new insights, this panel will focus on the comparative historical production of political cultures in copperbelt towns. Political culture is understood as a conceptual tool for studying (inductively) forms of political expression, the social organization of political activities, and the flow of political ideas within and between societies. In the case of the central African copperbelt, it may be related, among other things, to gender dynamics; claims advanced in terms of ethnic, regional, or racial identity; the militancy of workers and trade unions; conflicting projects of state-building; and/or campaigns by civil society organizations and transnational advocacy networks. The aim of the comparison between Zambia and Congo is to scrutinize the role of rural-urban connections; the place of race, class, ethnicity, and nationalism in the political imagination; the influence of booms and busts in the mining industry; and the nature of various forms of political projects and aspirations. It also aims to provide new understanding of the connections between the two copperbelts, and their influence on the formation of political cultures on both sides of the border.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Sarah Katz-Lavigne (University of Antwerp)
Paper short abstract:
Based on research conducted in Lubumbashi, DRC, this paper considers contestation over minerals, land, and employment, arguing that the manner in which property rights are governed is structured to a large extent by the local political culture and mine site geography of the former Katanga province.
Paper long abstract:
In a context in which the mining sector has been liberalized and the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has allocated many formerly state-owned mining concessions to large-scale mining companies, the distribution of property rights is being actively reconfigured in the large-scale, copper- and cobalt- mining sector of recently subdivided Katanga province. Based on research conducted in Lubumbashi, DRC - a context of multiple, overlapping claims to resources - from August to December 2016, this paper consider several areas of contestation over property: minerals (copper and cobalt), residential and arable land, and employment. This paper argues that the manner in which property rights are governed is structured to a large extent by the local political culture of the former Katanga province - including its autochthony-based claims to resources; expectations of broad(er)-based redistribution of mining benefits; and personalised, neopatrimonial nature - and by mine site geography, and that these strategies and choices have distributional consequences. Local property rights regimes and the geography of mine sites are specific to this region, which has a unique historical and political trajectory, but to some extent they vary across mine sites. A key difference between sites is whether they are situated in an urban, semi-urban, or rural context, with the associated implications for political culture and property rights. In the semi-urban/urban context around Lubumbashi, customary claims are said to be weaker than in other areas where mining companies have expropriated land, which affects the nature and intensity of the on-going contestation over land around mine sites.
Stephanie Lämmert (University of Oxford)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the intersection of spiritual expressions and political culture in late colonial and early post-colonial Copperbelt society. It seeks to show the porousness of denominational borders, explaining the high fluctuation in church affiliation as a consequence of the specific urban environment.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the intersection of spiritual expressions and political culture in the late colonial and early post-colonial mining towns of the Central African Copperbelts. As the history of Kimbanguism and the Jamaa movement in the Belgian Congo, the Lumpa Church in Zambia and the Watch Tower on both sides of the colonial border show, the religious and the political were closely intertwined and at times perceived as a threat by the (post)colonial authorities. This paper looks at the spiritual sphere as one important site of alternative knowledge production which was neither tied to the state nor to the mining companies. By examining spiritual literature and preaching traditions, it attempts to reveal alternative political visions held by Copperbelt Christians, thereby treating spirituality as crucial to modern urban political imagination instead of as an anti-secular backward force as contemporary nationalists and subsequently much of the scholarship have done.
While much of the existing literature has focused on particular movements or churches, this paper aims to show the porousness of denominational borders instead. It seeks to explain the high fluctuation in church affiliation by individuals in the copper towns as a consequence of the specific urban environment; an environment which was influenced by the flow of spiritual ideas between the two copperbelts and the region at large.
Kristien Geenen (Université de Liège)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the political culture(s) of the unions in a context of an increasing number of foreign companies with varying understandings of work regime, and puts a particular focus on the mining area around Kolwezi.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is based upon preliminary research carried out in Kolwezi. In view of the recent surge in foreign mining operations in the Congolese Copperbelt, it discusses how trade unions deal with the new investors. How does the presence of foreign companies, with their different and often divergent backgrounds, lead to modifications in the discourses, rituals or practices of the unions. Bearing in mind the fierce competition among the unions since the floor was opened to all in 1990, how do unions approach the new mining companies. In what way did the boom in mining activities and the arrival of the new foreign investors affect union politics in the local community?
To address this last question, special attention is paid to the celebration of Labour Day. An account of the Labour Day Parade, the yearly apogee of the trade unions' public show to the outer world, is used to analyse the interaction between the mining unions and the community of Kolwezi as a whole. Furthermore, the Labour Day Parade also allows to examine the grip of the companies upon the unionists' show.
Thomas McNamara (La Trobe University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines Zambian miners and unionist’s social discussions of unionism. This is compared to the narratives used in explicitly political settings, like wage negotiations, enabling a study of how informal union discourses utilise, scrutinise and possibly feed-into national political dialogue
Paper long abstract:
Union political figures and unions as political actors, are a core part of public and academic discourses on Zambian politics. However, little work explores the discursive recreation and scrutiny of unions in the workplace and social spaces. This paper will begin to fill that lacuna by recounting how unions are invoked in the social interactions of Zambian copper miners' and Mining Union's staff. By exploring how unions and unionism are informally discussed in the workplace, home and social spaces (bars, churches, football fields), the paper will recount some hidden transcripts of Zambian trade unionism. These will be compared to the interactions between MUZ staff, mine employees and managers in more explicitly political environments, like union recruitment drives and wage negotiations. Examining the similarities and disjuncture between discourses with various saliences for union staff, unionised and non-unionised workers in Zambian mining will enable an exploration of interplay between these groups that will comment on the ability (or otherwise) of local concerns to feed into national union politics.