Perseverence Madhuku, Joseph Mujere, Barbara Mahamba
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引用次数: 1
Abstract
ABSTRACT In recent decades, historians’ understanding of colonialism has been significantly enriched, going beyond the central concepts of resistance and negotiation. Several works have been produced on various aspects of African lives in colonial cities. Yet African organisational life and networks of solidarity in such ‘restrictive’ urban spaces have been largely overlooked. In this article, we examine African ‘informal’ leisure parties known as tea parties (matiyipati) and their role as economic circuits for the African underclass in Harari Township in Salisbury. Although Africans in urban areas were offered few opportunities in the colonial economy, they were capable of exploiting the crevices in the colonial system to create an alternative, underground economy that enabled them to survive in the city. Drawing on archival sources and oral interviews, this article argues that not only were tea parties arenas for alcohol consumption and cultural resistance but they were also essential platforms for chatting new livelihoods. The moral discourse of both the organisers and patrons was founded on the premise of the right to subsistence livelihoods. As a result, the exchange at these parties remained embedded in wide socio-cultural systems of which reciprocity formed an integral part.
期刊介绍:
Over the past 40 years, the South African Historical Journal has become renowned and internationally regarded as a premier history journal published in South Africa, promoting significant historical scholarship on the country as well as the southern African region. The journal, which is linked to the Southern African Historical Society, has provided a high-quality medium for original thinking about South African history and has thus shaped - and continues to contribute towards defining - the historiography of the region.