Description
Book SynopsisIn The Objects of Life in Central Africa the history of consumption and social change from 1840 until 1980 is explored. By taking consumption as a vantage point, the contributions deviate from and add to previous works which have mainly analysed issues of production from an economic and political perspective. The chapters are broad-ranging in temporal and geographical focus, including contributions on Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola. Topics range from the social history of firearms to the perception of the railway and include contributions on sewing machines, traders and advertising. By looking at the socio-economic, political and cultural meaning and impact of goods the history of Central Africa is reassessed.
Table of ContentsCONTENTS List of Illustrations List of Contributors Introduction: Material Culture and Consumption Patterns: A Southern African Revolution Robert Ross, Marja Hinfelaar and Iva Peša PART I PRE-COLONIAL TRADE AND FIREARMS Wearing Cloth, Wielding Guns: Consumption, Trade, and Politics in the South Central African Interior during the Nineteenth Century David Gordon The Role of Firearms in the Songye Region (1869–1960) Donatien Dibwe Dia Mwembu PART II MIGRANCY, MOBILITY AND INNOVATION Sipilingas: Intraregional African Initiatives and the United Methodist Church in Katanga and Zambia, 1910–1945 J. Jeffrey Hoover ‘Walking Home Majestically’: Consumption and the Enactment of Social Status among Labour Migrants from Barotseland, 1935–1965 Michael Barrett Railways, Railway Culture, and ‘Industrial Work Discipline’ in the Rhodesias Kenneth P. Vickery PART III ADVERTISING AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Advertising, Consuming Manufactured Goods and Contracting Colonial Hegemony on the Zambian Copperbelt, 1945–1964 Walima T. Kalusa Fabricating Dreams: Sewing Machines, Tailors, and Urban Entrepreneurship in Zambia Karen Tranberg Hansen PART IV TRADERS Indian Traders as Agents of Western Technological Consumption and Social Change in Mukuni: Memories of the Sharma Brothers’ Trading Store, 1950s to 1964 Friday Mufuzi The Social and Economic Impact of the Fort Jameson (Chipata) Indians on the Development of Chipata District, 1899–1973 Bizeck J. Phiri Business, Consumption and Politics: Robinson Nabulyato’s Banamwaze Store, 1949–1969 Marja Hinfelaar Buying Pineapples, Selling Cloth Traders and Trading Stores in Mwinilunga District, 1940–1970 Iva Peša Index
