Call for Papers: Conference 'Meat and Mining'

Meat and Mining is a conference on the animals whose flesh was used to power the industrial mining revolution that took place in southern Africa following the discovery of copper, diamonds, and gold from the 1850s onwards.

About the conference
In-person conference with invited speakers and pre-circulated papers to be held in Leiden, the Netherlands, 1-4 September 2027, within the context of the NWO Boom2Dust research project and the African Studies Centre's Collaborative Research Groups Patterns of Living in southern Africa, 1780s to the present and Trans-species perspectives on African Studies. 

Call for Papers
It is well known that the industrial mining revolution that transformed southern Africa from the mid-nineteenth century onwards was dependent on African labour and lay at the basis of legislated racial discrimination. Indeed, the issues of Race and Class in the southern African mineral revolution have filled bookcases with heated, at times vicious debate. However, hidden in the midst of all this vociferous debate has been the role of animals in this mining revolution: both as a source of labour and as a source of nutrition. ^[1] In this call for papers, we wish to decentre the human and focus on animals and try to treat them not primarily as a logistical source of flesh in the history of mining in southern Africa and beyond, but in the context of them being sentient beings.[2] It may not come as a surprise that we generally think of animals solely as a food resource in the history of mining in southern Africa. In the historiography of mining in Southern Africa, animals are generally written about solely in terms of numbers and percentages. Thus, the extinction of, for example, the Luapula Salmon or the Quagga, is only registered and considered in terms of numbers; in this case, zero.

It is known that cattle meat was used to feed the labourers who mined guano along the Namibian coast in the early 1800s.[3] The meat of cattle and sheep from central Namibia was fed to miners in the industrial copper mines of the Northern Cape from the 1850s forward.[4] The advent of diamond mining in South Africa in the mid-1860s led to a surge in demand for meat across the region. This demand coincided with the demise of the Quagga and the near extinction of other animals.[5] The demand for flesh for the diamond mines of the Northern Cape had knock-on effects that extended far beyond the region. For example, the meat of crayfish from Newfoundland and Maine found its way to Kimberley in tins, along with the flesh of sardines and anchovies from the Mediterranean.[6] Tinned Corned Beef, otherwise known as Bully-Beef, drawn from the slaughterhouses of Chicago, the pampas of South America and the estates of Ireland and Scotland, found its way to the Diamond Mines and later the Gold Mines of South Africa. Closer to home, the fishing industry of the Western Cape expanded rapidly in response to the demand for salted, dried and smoked fish as a source of protein for the mining industry.

The immensity of this trade in animals for flesh with the mines is indicated by Morrell, who indicated that 80.000 cattle were consumed annually in the labour compounds of the Witwatersrand.[7] Similarly, Phimister dealt with meat monopolies established by mining houses in colonial Zimbabwe in the first half of the twentieth century.[8] In colonial Zambia, Wilson noted that at Broken Hill in the 1930s, the greatest extra expenditure on food was on fish, being 2.7% of cash wages, more than grain and flour, 2.6%, and far in excess of money spent on meat, 0.7%.^[9] Further North on the Luapula River between Congo and Zambia, Cunnison demonstrated the importance of the fish trade for the labour compounds of the Congolese and Zambian Copperbelts.[10] Gordon drew attention to the subsequent collapse and eventual extinction of the Luapula Salmon.[11]

The provision of meat as an integral part of rations for mineworkers remained standard throughout southern Africa until at least 1990. Throughout the region, local entrepreneurs, both large and small, developed small concerns to supplement this incessant demand for animal flesh. Be it informal catfish trapping along the Orange River, extensive chicken farming on the South African Highveld, or the enormous boom in Kapenta fisheries on Lake Kariba. As the formal mining boom of the region collapsed in the 1990s, the informal mining boom expanded ever more as desperate miners sought to make a living from decommissioned industrial mines, as well as the development of consistently marginal claims throughout southern Africa. Central to this was the emergence of Zama Zama informal miners, some in large organised bands that were rewarded and powered by provisioned meat, sourced cheaply from industrial slaughterhouses, be it pigs' ears roasted on car tyres, or the giblets and feet of chickens produced for the fast food industry.

In all of this, the animals killed for their flesh to power human labour in mining in southern Africa are seldom ever considered in terms of themselves, as conscious thinking beings, and in certain cases, conscious self-aware beings.

This is a call for papers that deal with these animals that were hunted, corralled, netted, transported, and killed for their flesh (which in English is then re-labelled as the commodity meat), so that their flesh could be used to feed and power human labourers in the industrial mines of southern Africa. We welcome papers dealing with all manner of animals, be they molluscs, fish, birds, reptiles or mammals that were killed to feed labour in the mines of southern Africa. We welcome papers that seek to approach this topic in a manner that seeks to decentre the human and place the animal central in the analysis. In all of this, we wish to emphasise the importance of flesh packaged as meat in mining in southern Africa. Abstracts that explore aspects of this relationship are urged to apply.

Important dates
Should you wish to submit an abstract, please include a title and abstract of no more than 500 words, as well as a short CV of about 250 words to meatminingboomdust@gmail.com before 1 October 2026.

Selected abstracts will be invited to draft full-length papers for pre-circulation amongst the conference participants by August 2027. Selected abstracts with papers will be invited to present at the conference to be held in Leiden between 1-4 September 2027.

Conference costs
The conference organisers will cover accommodation costs for the conference participants selected to present a paper. Limited travel funds are available for invited participants, should they not be able to access sufficient funding.

Contact
All comments and queries can be directed to meatminingboomdust@gmail.com