Acknowledgements
The development of this book project over the past five years would not have been possible without the sustained engagement and support of many dozens of researchers and colleagues. The majority of the chapters included in this book have their origins in papers presented at Comparing the Copperbelt project-related events between 2016 and 2019 (full details are available at: http://copperbelt.history.ox.ac.uk/events), as well as seminars held under project auspices at the University of Oxford, and many presentations at universities in Africa, Europe and the United States. These include conferences organised at the Nordic Africa Institute in December 2016; a panel organised at the European Social Science History conference held in Belfast in April 2018; panels in the Congo Research Network conference held in Oxford in April 2018; a major workshop held in Kitwe, Zambia in July 2018; panels organised at the European Conferences on African Studies held in Basel (June 2017) and Edinburgh (June 2019); a major workshop held at the University of Lubumbashi in July 2019; and a panel organised at the African Studies Association US conference held in Boston Mass. in November 2019. The editors and authors are grateful to all participants and audience members at these events, whose comments and questions helped improve both the individual chapters and the book as a whole.
The editors of this volume are, as a result, indebted to so many individuals and organisations that they cannot all be named here without us overstepping our word count beyond the breaking point of our patient publishers. Special mention is therefore necessarily reserved for the following. Dr Patience Mususa kindly hosted an early event for the project in Uppsala in December 2016. That event was co-organised by Prof. Benjamin Rubbers, whose own European Research Council (ERC)-funded ‘WORKINMINING’ project on the contemporary Copperbelt has run parallel to ours, and who has provided exceptional support and advice for our project researchers. Colleagues at the University of Lubumbashi, particularly Profs Donatien Dibwe dia Mwembu and Germain Ngoie Tshibambe, provided crucial intellectual guidance and practical assistance throughout the entire course of the project. Colleagues in the History Department of the University of Zambia, particularly Profs Walima Kalusa and Bizeck J. Phiri and (elsewhere at UNZA) Dr Hikabwa Chipande, provided important guidance and played a key role in the 2018 Kitwe conference. At Copperbelt University Zambia (CBU), Profs John Lungu and Owen Sichone and Drs Robby Kapesa and Edna Kabala Litana were equally important in guiding research, helping to organise the Kitwe conference and hosting presentations on the project in 2017 and 2019.
The authors are grateful to the many archivists and librarians who enabled access to their collections. There are too many to mention by name here, but those at the ZCCM-IH archives in Ndola, whose records are cited in many chapters, warrant particular thanks. We are grateful for the permission to reproduce images and figures from the collections of the ZCCM-IH archives; the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium; and Mission Press in Ndola, Zambia.
The editors would also like to thank their all colleagues at the University of Oxford’s Faculty of History and African Studies Centre for their unstinting support of the project. Claire Phillips, the Project Administrator, has been central to its activities and achievements throughout. Dr Stephanie Lämmert played a vital role in the project’s early development. As well as contributing an important chapter to this collection, she kindly provided our cover image. Drs Thomas Hendriks and Ramon Sarró co-organised the Congo Research Network conference held in Oxford in April 2018.
The editors would like to acknowledge the generous funding by the European Research Council of the project, Comparing the Copperbelt: Political Culture and Knowledge Production in Central Africa (Grant Agreement No. 681657), based at the University of Oxford from 2016 to 2021. European Research Council funding enabled the research carried out by the editors, the organisation of project seminars and conferences, and the Open Access publication of this volume.
Thanks are also due to the following individuals: Mostafa Abdelaal; Wale Adebanwi; Kate Alexander; Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo; Karin Barber; William Beinart; James Belich; Filip de Boeck; Gavin Bridge; Deborah Bryceson; Alexander Caramento; John Darwin; Nicole Eggers; Kristien Geenen; Jan-Bart Gewald; the late Patrick Harries; Marja Hinfelaar; Nancy Rose Hunt; Bogumil Jewsiewicki; Emery Kalema; Sarah Katz-Lavigne; Brian J. Leech; Reuben Loffman; Tom McNamara; Christian Müller; James Musonda; Joël Noret; Margaret O’Callaghan; David Pratten; Francesca Pugliese; Katrien Pype; Corey Ross; Jeff Schauer, Miyanda Simabwachi; Sishuwa Sishuwa; Sarah van Beurden; and Daniela Waldburger.
Finally, and most importantly, particular thanks are due to Grant Chisapa and Pierrot Monzi Kalonga, as well as the many other Congolese and Zambian researchers and translators who were vital to the research carried out by the editors and authors and to whom this book is dedicated. We recognise that, just as the history of the Central African Copperbelt rests on the unjust and unequal exploitation of the region’s people, injustice and inequality remains ineluctable to the work of social historians and the production of knowledge about it. We hope that our modest efforts in documenting that history and acknowledging these historical and contemporary inequalities play a small role in addressing it.