The Household and the Mine Shaft: Gender and Class Struggles on the Zambian Copperbelt 1926-1964

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Periodical article

Title:	The Household and the Mine Shaft: Gender and Class Struggles on the Zambian Copperbelt 1926-1964
Author:	Parpart, Jane L.
Year:	1986
Periodical:	Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:	13
Issue:	1
Period:	October
Pages:	36-56
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Zambia
Subjects:	miners women Women's Issues Politics and Government Labor and Employment History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Cultural Roles Family Life Marital Relations and Nuptiality Historical/Biographical Sex Roles
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/2636675
Abstract:	The Zambian copper industry provides an interesting contrast to most of southern Africa as management permitted wives and children to live in company compounds from the industry's inception in 1926. This paper examines gender relations in African copper mining households, and the role of miners wives in the struggles between African labour and the copper companies in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) during the colonial period (1926-64). It examines corporate attempts to control women in the mine compounds, but I challenges the companies' claim that they created a conservative women's presence in the compounds. At the same time, it rejects the notion that miners' wives simply adopted the attitudes of their male partners. The nature of the cooperation between husband and wife against capital was affected by gender struggles within worker households as well as by common concerns vis-à-vis capital. Notes, ref.