Overview

This book explores Malawi’s recent history in light of longer-term historical developments, contributing important new insights to debates about migration, citizenship, chieftaincy, language, cultural practice, anti-colonialism and nationalism. The book is organised around five key themes: Rethinking Kamuzu Banda’s Malawi; Rural Development and Agricultural Production; Power and Politics from pre- to post-colony; Malawi and the Southern African Region; and ‘Culture’ and Cultural Production. The focus on a single country facilitates consideration of local particularities, as well as indentification of similarities in the trajectories and challenges shared with other countries in Africa. This book provides a nuanced understanding of Hastings Kamuzu Banda (Malawi’s first Prime Minister and President, 1964-94) and the legacy of his rule. Chapters analyse decolonisation in a political and a cultural sense, and show how the beginning and end of colonial rule were gradual processes rather than sharp ruptures. Individual chapters expand our knowledge of the history of public health, development, rural livelihoods, food production, and agricultural policy, as well as prompting new debate on migration, citizenship, chieftaincy, language, cultural practice, anti-colonialism and nationalism. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of Malawi and the wider Southern African region. Nine of the chapters were originally published in a special issue of the Journal of Southern African Studies, volume 46, issue 2 (2020). This volume contains a revised Introduction, five additional chapters, all previously published in JSAS, and a new Afterword.

Full Product Details

Author:   Zoë Groves ,  Jessica Johnson (University of Birmingham, UK)
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.740kg
ISBN:  

9781032304700

ISBN 10:   1032304707
Pages:   302
Publication Date:   27 June 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction— Protectorate, Dictatorship, Democracy: Reflections on Malawi’s Past and Present 1. Birthing a Nation: Political Legitimacy and Health Policy in Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s Malawi, 1962-1980 2. The Radical and Reactionary Politics of Malawi’s Hastings Banda: Roots, Fruit and Legacy 3. Remembering Kamuzu: The Ambiguity of the Past in Malawi’s Central Region 4. Yielding Trouble: Development Dilemmas and the Political Uses of Bad Data in Malawi, 1964-1978 5. ‘The Native is the Producer of the Future’: Improving Peasants’ Food Production in Southern Malawi, 1859-1939 6. The Green Belt Initiative, Politics and Sugar Production in Malawi 7. Chieftaincy in Malawi: Reinvention, Re-emergence or Resilience? A Kasungu Case Study 8. Petitioning the State: Group Councils and the Development of Political Consciousness in Malawi, 1940s-1950s 9. ‘The General from Fort Hill’: Katoba Flax Musopole’s Role as an Anti-Colonial Activist and Politician in Malawi 10. Central African Immigrants, Imperial Citizenship and the Politics of Free Movement in Interwar South Africa 11. ‘Totemless Aliens’: The Historical Antecedents of the Anti-Malawian Discourse in Zimbabwe, 1920s–1979 12. Malawi in Verse: Authenticity, African Literature, and Indigenous Aesthetic Forms 13. The Madando Rhetoric: Musical Critiques of Electoral Management Leadership in Malawi 14. The Invention of ‘Harmful Cultural Practices’ in the Era of AIDS in Malawi Afterword

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Author Information

Zoë Groves is Lecturer in Modern Global, Colonial and Postcolonial History at the University of Leicester, UK, and Research Associate at Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), Johannesburg, South Africa. Her research focuses on migration, urban history and popular culture in Southern Africa. She is author of Malawian Migration to Zimbabwe, 1900-1965: Tracing Machona (2020). Jessica Johnson is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and African Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. She is the author of In Search of Gender Justice: Rights and Relationships in Matrilineal Malawi (2018) and co-editor of Pursuing Justice in Africa: Competing imaginaries and Contested Practices (2018).

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