Abstract: Through a geographic and relational reinterpretation of the start of armed nationalist struggle in Angola, this article helps to critique and move beyond common interpretations
of Angola (and Africa more generally) as characterized by long-standing socio-spatial divisions.
Rather than an economic protest in an enclave, the so-called «cotton revolt» actually had multiple aspects — some explicitly nationalist — in a mobilization that was forged through multiple
connections spanning urban and rural areas, Malanje and Luanda, and Angola and the newly independent Congo. The revolt happened at Malanje’s transforming crossroads of an underground
Luanda-Malanje political network of churches, contracted laborers and administrative personnel that intersected with Congo-based provincial political mobilization organized through transborder ties.
DW Angola
Development Workshop Angola