Mpatamatu

The reprivatisation of Zambia's mining sector in 1997 marked the end of an paternalistic era that had given birth to the mine towns of the Copperbelt. From the beginnings of industrial mining under corporate colonialism in the late 1920s to the corporate cradle-to-grave practice under the state-owned company Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) in the 1980s and 1990s, each mine had resembled Goffman's total institution.

Social control over mineworkers and their families was exercised from the depth of the mine shaft to every corner of the mine house. The infrastructures extending from the mines and the economic privileges granted to mineworkers first cemented racial segregation and later the distance between mineworkers and other parts of the labour force.

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