Liquor and Labor in Southern Africa

Since colonial days, from the Cape to the Copperbelt, attempts have been made by whites to control the production of alcohol specifically for blacks, either for economic gain or as a means of controlling people.

The consumption of alcohol has also been regulated, in terms of both the type of liquor legally available to blacks and the areas where it might be consumed.

These attempts have frequently been met by black resistance.

Despite the enormous political, social and economic importance of alcohol in black communities, the subject has received little systematic scholarly attention.

Liquor and labor in Southern Africa breaks new ground.

The fifteen studies collected here explore the complex relationship between alcohol use and the emergence of the modern urban-industrial system.

They also reveal the vibrant subcultures nurtured in beerhalls and shebeens, and expose the bitter conflicts over alcohol that ran along the fault lines of age, gender, class, and ethnicity.