‘Getting by’: life on the Copperbelt after the privatisation of the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines

Abstract

The privatisation of the Zambian Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) in 1997 resulted in massive job losses, which marked the beginning of an unprecedented economic crisis on the Copperbelt. This coincided with the initiation of a house ownership policy by the Chiluba administration. Miners thus lost a job and gained a house as part of their retrenchment packages, which included some cash. The harsh material and psychological realities experienced by miners in this transition period spurred a wide array of informal economic activities in which the house and yard played important economic roles. It also tinged the experiences of former mine employees with nostalgia for a ‘golden’ past where the mining system provided a stable economic base and a wide range of social services. The disappearance of the old ZCCM system and its de facto control on socio‐economic differentiation sparked new processes of ‘class’ formation. This paper describes the livelihood processes and experiences of former mine employees, focussing on a high‐cost mine neighbourhood in the Copperbelt town of Luanshya.