Social Issues Involving Zambia
Social Issues Involving Human Disadvantage Within Zambia
Erica Banda
Social Change, Cultures and Development in Africa
3 February 2014
During my readings of C. Wright Mills, I was introduced to the concept of social imagination. Social imagination is the quality of achieving a lucid summation of what is going on in the world and what may be happening within yourself by determining what you need or what you feel you need. Within social imagination, you have to look at the complete structure of your society, how your society stands in human history, and the difference in the men and women who prevail in this society. This becomes a useful concept because it helps people understand what was going on in the world during a certain time period and it allows people clarity on what is happening within them (Mills, 1959). Throughout the remainder of the paper, I will introduce the country of Zambia and describe a few of the sociological issues that I discovered from my research and experience.
Zambia is located in Sub-Saharan Africa (south-central Africa), east of Angola and south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It also borders Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Formally known as Northern Rhodesia, Zambia gained its independence from the UK in 1964 naming Kenneth Kaunda as the first president. According to BBC news, “President Kaunda imposed single-party socialism, in which his United National Independence Party (UNIP) was the only legal political party within a ‘one-party participatory democracy’,” (“Zambia Profile, 2014). The constitution was eventually changed allowing a multi-party system where they now practice a Multi-party Democracy style government where they have Michael Sata, of the Patriotic Front, as the current president, who was elected 23 September 2011. (“Zambia”, 2014). Zambia has tough social conditions in regards to personal troubles and issues. But before we can determine what
Erica Banda
Social Change, Cultures and Development in Africa
3 February 2014
During my readings of C. Wright Mills, I was introduced to the concept of social imagination. Social imagination is the quality of achieving a lucid summation of what is going on in the world and what may be happening within yourself by determining what you need or what you feel you need. Within social imagination, you have to look at the complete structure of your society, how your society stands in human history, and the difference in the men and women who prevail in this society. This becomes a useful concept because it helps people understand what was going on in the world during a certain time period and it allows people clarity on what is happening within them (Mills, 1959). Throughout the remainder of the paper, I will introduce the country of Zambia and describe a few of the sociological issues that I discovered from my research and experience.
Zambia is located in Sub-Saharan Africa (south-central Africa), east of Angola and south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It also borders Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Formally known as Northern Rhodesia, Zambia gained its independence from the UK in 1964 naming Kenneth Kaunda as the first president. According to BBC news, “President Kaunda imposed single-party socialism, in which his United National Independence Party (UNIP) was the only legal political party within a ‘one-party participatory democracy’,” (“Zambia Profile, 2014). The constitution was eventually changed allowing a multi-party system where they now practice a Multi-party Democracy style government where they have Michael Sata, of the Patriotic Front, as the current president, who was elected 23 September 2011. (“Zambia”, 2014). Zambia has tough social conditions in regards to personal troubles and issues. But before we can determine what
Cited: Mills, C. W. (1959). The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Zambia. (2013, December 31). UNICEF. Retrieved March 8, 2014, from http://www. unicef.org/infobycountry/zambia_statistics.html Zambia. (2014, January 28). Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved February 3, 2014, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/za.html. Zambia Profile. (2014, February 13). BBC News. Retrieved March 9, 2014, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14112449