The colonial state, the mission and peasant farming in North-Western Province of Zambia : A case study of Zambezi District, 1907-1964

Contrary to widely held views among earlier scholars of the Zambian peasantry, this study has established that the Luvale-Lunda
people living in Zambezi district became peasant farmers between 1936 and 1964 when they successfully and consistently produced both usevalues and exchange-values. It has also argued that peasantisation in
the district was largely due to local initiative and resourcefulness.Amidst monumental constraints, the Luvale-Lunda food producers became innovative and successfully carved themselves a niche in the colonial market economy. "Largely, this dissertation focuses on the interrelated issues of proletarianisation and peasantisation, a combination that illuminates the inherent struggle between the colonial state/capitalist network and
indigenous food producers in the colonial political economy of Northern
Rhodesia. It has argued that despite being a prominent supplier of cheap African labour to the industrial centres of Northern Rhodesia,Southern Rhodesia and South Africa between 1907 and 1964, Zambezi district saw the rise of peasant farming between 1936 and 1964, predominantly independent of the hostile colonial state and contrary to
Arrighi's model of the theory of proletarianisation which emphasizes
the elimination of a peasantry by the process of proletarianisation.