Precarity in Angolan diamond mining towns, 1920–2014: tracing agency of the state, mining companies and urban households

• Published in: The Journal of modern African studies 2018-03, Vol.56 (1), p.113-141
• Main Authors: Udelsmann Rodrigues, Cristina, Bryceson, Deborah Fahy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; African studies; Capital; Capital investments; Central government; Civil war; Companies; Development programs; Diamond industry; Diamonds; Economic development; Employment; Households; Housing; Investments; Labor market; Livelihood; Mining; Mining industry; National wealth; Neoliberalism; Peace; Petroleum; Politics; Population; Prosperity; Provinces; Residents; Social exclusion; Towns; Uncertainty; Urban areas; Urban development; Urban population; Urbanization; War; Wealth; Welfare
• ISSN: 0022-278X; 1469-7777; 1469-7777
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X17000507

After nearly 30 years of civil war, Angola gained peace in 2002. The country's diamond and oil wealth affords the national government the means to pursue economic reconstruction and urban development. However, in the diamond-producing region of Lunda Sul, where intense fighting between MPLA and UNITA forces was waged, the legacy of war lingers on in the form of livelihood uncertainty and uneven access to the benefits of the state's urban development programmes. There are three main interactive agents of urban change: the Angolan state, the mining corporations, and not least urban residents. The period has been one of shifting alignments of responsibility for urban housing, livelihoods and welfare provisioning. Beyond the pressures of post-war adjustment, the wider context of global capital investment and labour market restructuring has introduced a new surge of corporate mining investment and differentiated patterns of prosperity and precarity in Lunda Sul.