Focusing on the relationship between people and transport, this paper presents an overview of the manner in which transport was organized before and after the introduction of the motor vehicle in... Show moreFocusing on the relationship between people and transport, this paper presents an overview of the manner in which transport was organized before and after the introduction of the motor vehicle in what has become the central African State of Zambia. It describes the forms of human muscle powered transport that existed prior to the introduction of mechanized transport, such as portage and waterborne transport, as well as the use of animal traction outside the tsetse fly belts. It further deals with the use of steam (trains), bicycles, and motorcycles before discussing the implications of the introduction of motor vehicles for central African societies. The paper concludes that Zambian rural impoverishment in the course of the 1920s and 1930s was a consequence of a change in the modes of transport and the collapse of long-distance trading networks based on human labour power. [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
The rich corpus of material produced by anthropologists of the Rhodes Livingstone Institute (RLI) in Lusaka has come to dominate our understanding of Zambian societies and Zambia's past. The RLI... Show moreThe rich corpus of material produced by anthropologists of the Rhodes Livingstone Institute (RLI) in Lusaka has come to dominate our understanding of Zambian societies and Zambia's past. The RLI was primarily concerned with the sociocultural effects of migrant labour. This paper argues that the anthropologists of the RLI worked from within a paradigm that was dominated by the experience of colonial conquest in South Africa. RLI anthropologists transferred their understanding of colonial conquest in South Africa to the Northern Rhodesian situation, without ever truly analysing the manner in which colonial rule had come to be established in Northern Rhodesia. As such the RLI anthropologists operated within a flawed understanding of the past. The paper argues that a historical paradigm of colonial conquest that was applicable to the South African situation came to be unquestioningly applied to the Northern Rhodesian situation. It concludes that current historiography dealing with the colonization of Zambia between 1890 and 1920 is seriously flawed and needs to be revised. [ASC Leiden abstract] Show less
