Boom and Bust, Revival and Renewal

This chapter provides the ethnographic background for the rest of this book. It begins by responding to James Ferguson's (1999) well-known study of Kitwe, which portrayed the Copperbelt as a place of decline and despair. In contrast to Ferguson's description, this chapter situates the Copperbelt in a broader historical context of boom and bust, with regular cycles of prosperity as well as poverty. This is one of the main reasons for the optimism found during fieldwork. The chapter also offers a description of Nsofu, focused on those features of township life that facilitate moving, namely economic diversity and the large number of Pentecostal churches. In addition, it traces the development of Pentecostalism in Zambia, beginning with the arrival of the first Pentecostal missionaries in the 1950s.