Research Catalog
Expectations of modernity : myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt / James Ferguson.
- Title
- Expectations of modernity : myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt / James Ferguson.
- Author
- Ferguson, James, 1959-
- Publication
- Berkeley : University of California Press, c1999.
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1 Item
| Status | Vol/Date | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Not available - Please for assistance. | copy 2 | Text | Use in library | AFR.SOUTH F 379 e copy 2 | Off-site |
Details
- Description
- xvii, 326 p. : ill., maps; 24 cm.
- 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 history. He instead develops alternative analytic tools appropriate for an "ethnography of decline." Ferguson shows how the Zambian copper workers understand their own experience of social, cultural, and economic "advance" and "decline." Ferguson's ethnographic study transports us into their lives—the dynamics of their relations with family and friends, as well as copper companies and government agencies."--
- Series Statement
- Perspectives on Southern Africa ; 57
- Uniform Title
- Perspectives on Southern Africa 57.
- Alternative Title
- Myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt
- Subjects
- Electronic books
- Electronic book
- Since 1964
- Zambia > Politics and government
- Zambia > Economic conditions > 1964-
- Zambia > Social conditions > 1964-
- Copper mines and mining > Zambia > Copperbelt Province
- Copper industry and trade > Zambia > Copperbelt Province
- Industrialization > Zambia > Copperbelt Province
- Urbanization > Zambia > Copperbelt Province
- Urban anthropology > Zambia > Copperbelt Province
- Genre/Form
- Electronic book
- Electronic books.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-320) and index.
- Processing Action (note)
- committed to retain
- Contents
- 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: signification, noise, and cosmopolitan style -- Global disconnect: abjection and the aftermath of modernism -- Postscript: December 1998.
- ISBN
- 0520217012 (alk. paper)
- 9780520217010 (alk. paper)
- 0520217020 (pbk. : alk. paper)
- 9780520217027 (pbk. : alk. paper)
- LCCN
- ^^^98047355^
- OCLC
- 40119700
- SCSB-10011431
- Owning Institutions
- Harvard Library