Book launch: 'White Mineworkers on Zambia's Copperbelt, 1926-1974: In a Class of Their Own'

This event will be held both online and physically in Leiden. All registrees will receive a link to the online platform one day before the start of the event.

The ASCL is pleased to announce the launch of Duncan Money's new book 'White Mineworkers on Zambia's Copperbelt, 1926-1974: In a Class of Their Own' on Thursday 24 March.

This book is the first that looks at the many thousands of white workers who migrated to Zambia's copper mines and became some of most affluent and wealthy groups of workers in the world. Drawing on archival research from four continents, Money argues that this group was a highly mobile global workforce and constituted a racialised working class, a white working class.

The affluence of these white mineworkers was secured through bitter struggles against the mining companies and by repeatedly preventing Africans from being employed in skilled jobs. These jobs were monopolised by white workers from the 1920s to the 1960s. They were an unpleasant bunch, but they were important.

In this book, Money focuses on the mobility of these workers and their international connections. These, he argues, played a crucial role in shaping social categories of race and class on the Copperbelt and determining the evolution of a region which quickly became one of the world’s largest sources of copper.

You can buy the book on the Brill website or read an open access version.