Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the pursuit of leisure time and the acquisition of leisure goods on the Copperbelt in colonial Zambia to explore the implications of the engagement of Copperbelt residents in market culture.

Paper long abstract:

The development of industrial mining on the Zambian Copperbelt is among the most dramatic examples of rapid urbanization in colonial African history. Shortly, tens of thousands had moved into the region—taking jobs and establishing businesses. The migration of men, women and families, African and European, into and out of the Copperbelt closely linked mining communities to rural societies across the region and to South Africa and Europe. As a consequence, people across central Africa and especially in the Copperbelt itself found themselves enmeshed in industrial, commercial and consumer markets that spanned the region and linked the mining region to the global economy. White workers and managers extended consumer markets into the region; and African producers, traders and consumers rapidly developed markets in food, basic household goods, and clothing, extending from towns into the countryside. This paper explores the cultural and intellectual implications of the emergence of such a market culture—a topic rarely directly addressed by historians of Africa. What did it mean to engage a world in which goods and services had monetary value and your own time, even your leisure time, could be priced? Whether it was frequenting the peri-urban shebeens hidden away on the outskirts of Copperbelt towns, or purchasing the slickest new clothes mail order from the UK, or attending a film show, or even planning your retirement, it was often in leisure and the pursuit of pleasure that the market most vividly emerged.