Boom2Dust blog: Dust Devils - A reflection on fieldwork in Kabwe, Zambia
In a new post for the Boom2Dust project, a comparative study of three industrial mining centres in southern Africa (1870–2020), Walker Swindell describes a month of fieldwork in Kabwe, Zambia, where decades of mining waste are still very present in everyday life. At the Broken Hill Mine, dust rises in brown and grey clouds with every step, settling on houses, schools, people, and animals. This dust carries toxic metals that cause severe effects, such as lead poisoning, in locals, livestock and stray dogs. Through his encounters with the landscape, Swindell reflects on how mining’s legacy persists as ever-present dust, influencing health, environment, people and animals in what he calls a "visceral" quality of life in Kabwe today.
Read the full blog here.
About the author(s) / editor(s)
Walker Swindell is a PhD candidate at the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL), working on the Boom to Dust project. Originally from South Africa, he holds a Research Masters degree in History from Utrecht University. His academic work as an historian focuses on the political, economic and social history of southern Africa having written his RMA thesis on the history of Zambian foreign policy during the period of decolonisation. He also completed a 6-month internship at the ASCL where he conducted a literature review in the history of South African based political, social and economic expansion throughout the region as driven by the development of the mining industry. This project has served as the basis of his interest in the history of mining in southern Africa which he now turns to as he researches and writes an environmental history of the mining town of Kabwe, Zambia.
Posted on 27 November 2025, last modified on 28 November 2025