The Copperbelt in Theory: From "Emerging Africa" to the Ethnography of Decline -- Expectations of Permanence: Mobile Workers, Modernist Narratives, and the "Full House" of Urban-Rural Residential Strategies -- Rural Connections, Urban Styles: Theorizing Cultural Dualism -- "Back to the Land"?: The Micropolitical Economy of "Return" Migration -- Expectations of Domesticity: Men, Women, and "the Modern Family" -- Asia in Miniature: Signfication, Noise, and Cosmopolitan Style -- Global Disconnect: Abjection and the Aftermath of Modernism -- Postscript: December 1998 -- Appendix: MIneworkers' Letters
Summary
Once lauded as the wave of the African future, Zambia's economic boom in the 1960s and early 1970s was fueled by the export of copper and other primary materials. Since the mid-1970s, however, the urban economy has rapidly deteriorated, leaving workers scrambling to get by. Expectations of Modernity explores the social and cultural responses to this prolonged period of sharp economic decline. Focusing on the experiences of mineworkers in the Copperbelt region, James Ferguson traces the failure of standard narratives of urbanization and social change to make sense of the Copperbelt's recent his
Analysis
1960s
1970s
academic
africa
african culture
african history
african studies
analysis
copper
copperbelt
cultural history
cultural studies
economic boom
economics
economy
ethnography
exports
finance
global economy
global
international
labor
modernity
money
precious metals
scholarly
social studies
urban economy
urban
zambia
zambian culture
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-320) and index