Distant Companions: Servants and Employers in Zambia, 1900–1985

Karen Tranberg Hansen

Published by Cornell University Press 1989

Distant Companions

Servants and Employers in Zambia, 1900–1985

Karen Tranberg Hansen
Funded by: National Endowment for the Humanities Open Book Program

In the series The Anthropology of Contemporary Issues

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501719950

Overview
Contents

About this book

Distant Companions tells the fascinating story of the lives and times of domestic servants and their employers in Zambia from the beginning of white settlement during the colonial period until after independence. Emphasizing the interactive nature of relationships of domination, the book is useful for readers who seek to understand the dynamics of domestic service in a variety of settings. In order to examine the servant- employer relationship within the context of larger political and economic processes, Karen Tranberg Hansen employs an unusual combination of methods, including analysis of historical documents, travelogues, memoirs, literature, and life histories, as well as anthropological fieldwork, survey research, and participant observation.

Author / Editor information

Karen Tranberg Hansen is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Northwestern University. She is the author of Keeping House in Lusaka and Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia and the editor of African Encounters with Domesticity.

Reviews

Janet L. Parpart:

Utilizing an impressive array of research methods—from historical archives to social surveys—Hansen provides both historical depth and current insights into this most contentious of employer-employee relationships. She discovers that the intimacy of the home as a workplace, with its daily contact between servant and employer, requires elaborate rituals to maintain and preserve social distance between employer and employee. Class conflict and tension, often intertwined with race and gender, have a special drama in the household, making this form of labor peculiarly revealing for the study of these issues. Distant Companions is a superb book—carefully crafted, broadly researched, and deeply committed to improving the conditions of domestic labor. It has important implications for the comparative study of domestic work and should be required reading for Africanists and feminists alike.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations, Maps, and Tables Open Access Download PDF	ix
Preface Open Access Download PDF	xi
Abbreviations Open Access Download PDF	xv
Introduction. The Problem and Its Context Open Access Download PDF	1
Part I. Fixture of Colonial Society
1. The Creation of a Gender Role: The Male Domestic Servant Open Access Download PDF	29
2. Women For Hire? Sex And Gender In Domestic Service Open Access Download PDF	84
3. Troubled Lives: Servants and Their Employers in the Preindependence Era Open Access Download PDF	154
Part II. Encountering Domestic Service
4. Research On And Life With Servants Open Access Download PDF	197
PART III. Colonial Legacies and Postcolonial Changes
5. Persistence and Change Open Access Download PDF	217
6. A Transformed Occupation Open Access Download PDF	244
7. Lives Beyond the Workplace Open Access Download PDF	267
8. Servants Everywhere: Conclusions Open Access Download PDF	293
Appendix 1. Servants’ Wages Open Access Download PDF	303
Appendix 2. Servants’ Budgets Open Access Download PDF	305
Index Open Access Download PDF	315

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 342
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 4
- Images: 17
- Tables: 7
- Other: 17 halftones, 7 tables, 4 maps
Keywords: History; African Hist & Diaspora

eBook

Published: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 9781501719950