The paper describes the kinds of place-making and mobilities that are occurring along Zambia’s urban development corridors with a focus on the country’s mining regions and its capital city.
Paper long abstract:
The resurgence in global demand for copper, Zambia’s important export commodity the country has attracted investment in new large-scale mines and transport infrastructure. This has seen the emergence of new mining towns in the country’s North-Western province and increased economic activity along the routes and border regions along which copper is transported, including the Copperbelt province. Additionally, the country’s capital Lusaka, a prime city has grown beyond its limits to encompass former farmland. Drawing from ethnographic data, as well as survey data on Zambia, conducted as part of a multi-country study including Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the paper describes the spatialisation of these developments with a focus on the economic geographies that these trends have produced. The paper engages with the literature on development corridors in Africa, highlighting the varying kinds of mobilities and the materialisation of place along their routes.