"New Society to Insist on Good Manners": Debating Manners and Politics in Federation-Era Southern Rhodesia, 1953–63

This paper explores urban manners in order to map out the ways people navigated relations with rural relatives, their neighbors in the high density suburbs, and peoples of various backgrounds on the streets of the capital, Salisbury (now Harare).  In parallel with political conversations about Federation (1953-1963) and the emergent nationalist parties, middle class urban Africans vigorously debated proper conduct in everyday life, from hair and clothing styles, to right portions of food and drink, to correct diction and tone in speech.  Indeed, people worried and wondered about the forms of courtesy and hospitality appropriate to urban realities, especially given close living quarters that created tensions around the desire for privacy, and because slender urban budgets precluded entertaining rural kin who expected hospitality from urban dwellers. This paper follows a series of debates over the manners of youth, politicians, Coloureds, and foreign-born Africans as they intersected with and informed other more obviously political debates about racial strife and high politics in Southern Rhodesia during the Federation period.  This paper is based on archival files, newspaper letters, and contemporary magazines.