Contradictions and Challenges in Representing the Past: The Kuomboka Festival of Western Zambia

This article examines the struggle of various actors over the use of representations of the past to aid the development of communities in central southern Africa. It addresses the contradictions, contestations and dilemmas involved in this process through a case study of the Kuomboka, a heritage festival held annually in the heart of the Upper Zambezi Valley. Hosted by the Lozi peoples of western Zambia, the festival utilises Lozi history and heritage and is viewed as a strong symbol of identification not only for people who consider themselves Lozi but also for Zambians in general and other Africans. Significantly, Kuomboka is also a festival visited by very few non-Africans. I will argue that the struggle to extract contemporary value out of this manifestation of Lozi heritage is fought on three levels – first, over contested versions of the past; second, over the uses of heritage; and, finally, over ownership of heritage and the implications of this ownership for the distribution of the benefits of heritage development. The intensity of the struggle, which is fought across divisions of class and ethnicity, also highlights the competition over scarce resources that exists in a region suffering economic underdevelopment and social disadvantage.