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Invisible Agents
Invisible Agentsshows how personal and deeply felt spiritual beliefs can inspire social movements and influence historical change. Conventional historiography concentrates on the secular, materialist, or moral sources of political agency. Instead, David M. Gordon argues, when people perceive spirits as exerting power in the visible world, these beliefs form the basis for individual and collective actions. Focusing on the history of the south-central African country of Zambia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, his analysis invites reflection on political and religious realms of action in other parts of the world, and complicates the post-Enlightenment divide of sacred and profane.The book combines theoretical insights with attention to local detail and remarkable historical sweep, from oral narratives communicated across slave-trading routes during the nineteenth century, through the violent conflicts inspired by Christian and nationalist prophets during colonial times, and ending with the spirits of Pentecostal rebirth during the neoliberal order of the late twentieth century. To gain access to the details of historical change and personal spiritual beliefs across this long historical period, Gordon employs all the tools of the African historian. His own interviews and extensive fieldwork experience in Zambia provide texture and understanding to the narrative. He also critically interprets a diverse range of other sources, including oral traditions, fieldnotes of anthropologists, missionary writings and correspondence, unpublished state records, vernacular publications, and Zambian newspapers.Invisible Agentswill challenge scholars and students alike to think in new ways about the political imagination and the invisible sources of human action and historical change.
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Ambiguous childhoods : peer socialisation, schooling and agency in a Zambian village
\"Growing up with social and economic upheaval in the peripheries of global neoliberalism, children in rural Zambia are presented with diverging social and moral protocols across homes, classrooms, church halls, and the street. Mostly unmonitored by adults, they explore the ambiguities of adult life in playful interactions with their siblings and kin across gender and age. Drawing on rich linguistic-ethnographic details of such interactions combined with observations of school and household procedures, the author provides a rare insight into the lives, voices, and learning paths of children in a rural African setting\"-- Provided by publisher.
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Five Nights Before the Summit
It is 1979. The first Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit on African soil is due to take place in Zambia, graced by Queen Elizabeth herself. Barely a week before this much anticipated event, a white British couple, Henry and Laura Hinckley, are brutally killed on their farm on the outskirts of the capital city, Lusaka. The unknown perpetrators are at large, their motive unclear. Fearing a media backlash, the British government applies pressure on the Zambian authorities to bring the culprits to book, threatening to cancel the Queen's trip altogether - a move that would result in huge embarrassment for the Zambian government. Detective Maxwell Chanda, head of the Special Crimes Investigative Unit, is the man tasked with leading the investigation. He is a wise, steady hand, but will he be able to piece together the seemingly disparate evidence in just five days? Will he be able to hold firm under the intense political pressure which insists on putting expediency above accuracy?Five Nights Before the Summit offers a rich tapestry of context and character in a story that engages the reader in the pursuit of justice.
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The old drift : a novel
On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the epic story of a small African nation, told by a mysterious swarm-like chorus that calls itself man's greatest nemesis. The tale? A playful panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction. The moral? To err is human.
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Zion in Africa
This work represents the definitive account of the Jewish community in central Africa. It tells the story of the coming of the first Jews to the area in the late 19th century, the heyday of the Jewish community in the mid-20th century, and its decline since Zambian independence. Dealing primarily with the Jewish traders in Zambia who flourished in the face of both anti-semitism and their own acute social dislocation, Macmillan explores a number of interrelated topics: the colonial office discussions about Jewish immigration in the 1930s, the attempts to settle refugees in Africa by both pro- and anti-semites, Jewish religious life in the region, and the remarkable cultural and professional role played by the Jewish settlers.
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Rethinking African Politics
In 1964 Kenneth Kaunda and his United National Independence Party (UNIP) government established the nation of Zambia in the former British colony of Northern Rhodesia. In parallel with many other newly independent countries in Africa this process of decolonisation created a wave of optimism regarding humanity's capacity to overcome oppression and poverty. Yet, as this study shows, in Zambia as in many other countries, the legacy of colonialism created obstacles that proved difficult to overcome. Within a short space of time democratisation and development was replaced by economic stagnation, political authoritarianism, corruption and ethnic and political conflict. To better understand this process, Dr Larmer explores UNIP's political ideology and the strategies it employed to retain a grip on government. He shows that despite the party's claim that it adhered to an authentically African model of consensual and communitarian decision-making, it was never a truly nationally representative body. Whereas in long-established Western societies unevenness in support was accepted as a legitimate basis for party political difference, in Zambia this was regarded as a threat to the fragile bindings of the young nation state, and as such had to be denied and repressed. This led to the declaration of a one-party state, presented as the logical expression of UNIP supremacy but it was in fact a reflection of its weakening grip on power. Through case studies of opposition political and social movements rooted in these differences, the book demonstrates that UNIP's control of the new nation-state was partial, uneven and consistently prone to challenge. Alongside this, the study also re-examines Zambia's role in the regional liberation struggles, providing valuable new evidence of the country's complex relations with Apartheid-era South Africa and the relationship between internal and external opposition, shaped by the context of regional liberation movements and the Cold War. Dra
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Nachituti's Gift
Nachituti’s Gift challenges conventional theories of economic development with a compelling comparative case study of inland fisheries in Zambia and Congo from pre- to postcolonial times. Neoclassical development models conjure a simple, abstract progression from wealth held in people to money or commodities; instead, Gordon argues, primary social networks and oral charters like “Nachituti’s Gift” remained decisive long after the rise of intensive trade and market activities. Interweaving oral traditions, songs, and interviews as well as extensive archival research, Gordon’s lively tale is at once a subtle analysis of economic and social transformations, an insightful exercise in environmental history, and a revealing study of comparative politics.
Honorable Mention, Melville J. Herskovits Award, African Studies Association “A powerful portrayal of the complexity, fluidity, and subtlety of Lake Mweru fishers’ production strategies . . . .
Natchituti’s Gift adds nuance and evidence to some of the most important and sophisticated conversations going on in African studies today.”—Kirk Arden Hoppe,
International Journal of African Historical Studies “A lively and intelligent book, which offers a solid contribution to ongoing debates about the interplay of the politics of environment, history and economy.”—Joost Fontein,
Africa “Well researched and referenced . . . . [
Natchituti’s Gift ] will be of interest to those in a wide variety of disciplines including anthropology, African Studies, history, geography, and environmental studies.”—Heidi G. Frontani,
H-SAfrica
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