Until recently, European medical missionaries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were often portrayed as all-powerful heroes who plied their craft without being soiled by the cultural commerce of the people they encountered in imperial contexts. Such histories often cast colonial subjects as beneficiaries of missionary medicine who, none the less, routinely ...

This article explores the conflicting meanings of the trans-African expedition undertaken between 1853 and 1856 by colonial explorer David Livingstone, with the support of the African monarch Sekeletu, the young Kololo king. The Scottish explorer perceived the inter-continental journey as essential to establishing a trade route along which would flow imported goods...

Informed by recent scholarship that underscores the centrality of death, corpses and funerals in contemporary African politics, this article explores the ways in which political actors in the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and the opposition Patriotic Front (PF) in Zambia appropriated the corpse and legacy of President Levy Mwanawasa to mobilise pol...