Böcker av Todd Cleveland

"This book reconstructs the birth and development of the tourism sector in colonial Mozambique, from roughly 1890 to 1975, with a focus on the experiences of African laborers in the industry."--

An engaging social history of foreign tourists dreams, the African tourism industrys efforts to fulfill them, and how both sides affect each other.Since the nineteenth century, foreign tourists and resident tourism workers in Africa have mutually relied upon notions of exoticism, but from vastly different perspectives. Many of the countless tourists who have traveled to the African continent fail to acknowledge or even realize that skilled African artists in the tourist industry repeatedly manufacture authentic experiences in order to fulfill foreigners often delusional, or at least uninformed, expectations. These carefully nurtured and controlled performances typically reinforce tourists reductive impressionsformed over centuriesof the continent, its peoples, and even its wildlife. In turn, once back in their respective homelands, tourists accounts of their travels often substantiate, and thereby reinforce, prevailing stereotypes of exotic Africa. Meanwhile, Africans staged performances not only impact their own lives, primarily by generating remunerative opportunities, but also subject the continents residents to objectification, exoticization, and myriad forms of exploitation.

Diamonds in the Rough explores the lives of African laborers on Angola's diamond mines from the commencement of operations in 1917 to the colony's independence from Portugal in 1975. The mines were owned and operated by the Diamond Company of Angola, or Diamang, which enjoyed exclusive mining and labor concessions granted by the colonial government. Through these monopolies, the company became the most profitable enterprise in Portugal's African empire. After a tumultuous initial period, the company's mines and mining encampments experienced a remarkable degree of stability, in striking contrast to the labor unrest and ethnic conflicts that flared in other regions. Even during the Angolan war for independence (1961-75), Diamang's zone of influence remained comparatively untroubled.Todd Cleveland explains that this unparalleled level of quietude was a product of three factors: African workers' high levels of social and occupational commitment, or "e;professionalism"e;; the extreme isolation of the mining installations; and efforts by Diamang to attract and retain scarce laborers through a calculated paternalism. The company's offer of decent accommodations and recreational activities, as well as the presence of women and children, induced reciprocal behavior on the part of the miners, a professionalism that pervaded both the social and the workplace environments. This disparity between the harshness of the colonial labor regime elsewhere and the relatively agreeable conditions and attendant professionalism of employees at Diamang opens up new ways of thinking about how Africans in colonial contexts engaged with forced labor, mining capital, and ultimately, each other.

Stones of Contention explores the major developments in the remarkable history of Africa's diamonds, from the earliest stirrings of international interest in the continent's mineral wealth in the first millennium A.D. to the present day.