Spirits and Land Reforms: Conflicts About Land in Dande, Northern Zimbabwe

2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marja Spierenburg
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Fast Track ◽  
The State ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
Reform Programme ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Commercial Farms ◽  
Communal Areas ◽  
Land Use Practices

AbstractDespite its present support for the invasion of (mainly white-owned) commercial farms and emphasis on 'fast-track resettlement', most interventions by the post-Independence government of Zimbabwe in agriculture aimed to confine African farmers to the Communal Areas. In Dande, northern Zimbabwe, a land reform programme was introduced in 1987 that sought to 'rationalise' local land use practices and render them more efficient. Such reforms were deemed necessary to reduce the pressure on commercial farms. This article describes how the reforms caused Mhondoro mediums in Dande to challenge the authority of the state over land, thereby referring to the role they and their spirits played in the struggle for Independence. Pressure on the mediums to revoke their criticism resulted in a complex process in which adherents challenged the reputation of mediums who were not steadfast in their resistance to the reforms.

The Party-State in the Land Occupations of Zimbabwe: The Case of Shamva District

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Bhatasara ◽  
Kirk Helliker
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Fast Track ◽  
The State ◽  
Central Province ◽  
Reform Programme ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Year 2000 ◽  
Ruling Party ◽  
Party State

There has been significant debate about the land occupations which occurred from the year 2000 in Zimbabwe, with a key controversy concerning the role of the state and ruling party (or party-state) in the occupations. This controversy, deriving from two grand narratives about the occupations, remains unresolved. A burgeoning literature exists on the Zimbabwean state’s fast-track land reform programme, which arose in the context of the occupations, but this literature is concerned mainly with post-occupation developments on fast-track farms. This article seeks to contribute to resolving the controversy surrounding the party-state and the land occupations by examining the occupations in the Shamva District of Mashonaland Central Province. The fieldwork for our Shamva study focused exclusively on the land occupations (and not on the fast-track farms) and was undertaken in May 2015. We conclude from our Shamva study that involvement by the party-state did not take on an institutionalised form but was of a personalised character entailing interventions by specific party and state actors.

Land and Agrarian Development in South Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 239-260
Author(s):  
Ruth Hall ◽  
Farai Mtero
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
Tenure Reform ◽  
Agrarian Economy ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Commercial Farms ◽  
Communal Areas ◽  
And Control ◽  
Agrarian Development

Land ownership and control historically underpinned patterns of unequal development in South Africa, with dispossession and the migrant labour economy being the basis for agrarian dualism and economic inequality. Yet land reform – the redistribution of white-owned commercial farms to black smallholders – has been a largely unfulfilled political promise during the first 25 years of democratic rule. South Africa’s negotiated transition produced a constitution that provides certain protections to property rights while simultaneously mandating land reforms through land redistribution, tenure reform and restitution, including via expropriation. Initially conceived as a pro-poor programme, land reform was reinvented over time, reflecting wider economic policy shifts, towards the creation of a small prosperous segment of black commercial farmers, thereby deracializing the dominant sector without restructuring landholdings and the agrarian economy. The shortcomings of land reform not only perpetuate inequalities inherited from colonialism and apartheid, but have also led to the production of new problems. We point to three recent and ongoing dynamics driving new and aggravated forms of land inequality: financialization, with the entry of new financial sector actors into corporate landholding, property portfolios and speculation; land concentration driven both by market forces and elite capture of public resources and corruption in land reforms; and land commodification driven by powerful corporate, political and traditional elites combining to expand large agricultural and mining investments in communal areas.

The Making of a System of Partisan Authority on Commercial Farmlands in Post-2000 Zimbabwe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold Chamunogwa
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Fast Track ◽  
Dominant Mode ◽  
War Veterans ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Commercial Farming ◽  
Reform Programme ◽  
Commercial Farms ◽  
New System

This chapter illustrates how powerful ruling parties can sidestep strong state institutions by pursuing and enforcing their political and developmental agendas through ‘twilight institutions’ operating on the state’s margins. It discusses the rapid displacement and remaking of power and authority on white-owned commercial farms in Zimbabwe, following the spectacular upheavals of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) in 2000. The chapter specifically explains how local ZANU-PF structures together with their allies—war veterans, youth militias, and others—constructed and established a new system of partisan authority that became the dominant mode of governing commercial farming areas from 2000 to 2002. These actors sought to use the system of partisan authority to recreate the terms of existence on occupied farms, to govern and regulate political conduct, and to control access to land and related resources.The chapter also brings into consideration farm occupiers’ experiences, responses, and adaptations of the system of partisan authority, an aspect neglected in the wider literature on FTLRP, which presents farm occupiers as accomplices and allies of ZANU-PF. Specifically, it illustrates how social categorizations and hierarchical ordering on occupied farms enabled ordinary occupiers to contest claims to authority and resources by local ZANU-PF structures, war veterans, and youth militias under the system of partisan authority.

Conservation and privatization decisions in land reform of New Zealand’s high country

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Adena R Rissman ◽  
Molly C Daniels ◽  
Peter Tait ◽  
Xiaojing Xing ◽  
Ann L Brower
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Conservation Easement ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
Lower Productivity ◽  
Ecological Values

Summary Neoliberal land reforms to increase economic development have important implications for biodiversity conservation. This paper investigates land reform in New Zealand’s South Island that divides leased state-owned stations (ranches) with private grazing leases into state-owned conservation land, private land owned by the former leaseholder and private land under protective covenant (similar to conservation easement). Conserved lands had less threatened vegetation, lower productivity, less proximity to towns and steeper slopes than privatized lands. Covenants on private land were more common in intermediate zones with moderate land-use productivity and slope. Lands identified with ecological or recreational ‘significant inherent values’ were more likely to shift into conserved or covenant status. Yet among lands with identified ecological values, higher-threat areas were more likely to be privatized than lower-threat areas. This paper makes two novel contributions: (1) quantitatively examining the role of scientific recommendations about significant inherent values in land reform outcomes; and (2) examining the use of conservation covenants on privatized land. To achieve biodiversity goals, it is critical to avoid or prevent the removal of land-use restrictions beyond protected areas.

Socio-Economic Characterisation of Resettled Smallholder Farmers in Rural Zimbabwe

2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962110588
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Ndhlovu
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Fast Track ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Reform Programme ◽  
Small Holder Farmers ◽  
Small Holder ◽  
Blind Spots

The socio-economic characterisation of resettled small-holder farmers under the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) in Zimbabwe has blind spots in relation to the emergent transformative social policy features such as ‘social cohesion’, ‘cooperation’, ‘protection’ and ‘accumulation’ which are equally important among land beneficiaries. Using the Sangwe farm, this article departs from the conventional use of the political economy, sustainable livelihoods, human rights-based and neo-patrimonial approaches to experiment with the transformative social policy approach. Using both quantitative and qualitative data in an exploratory research design, the article shows that viewed from the transformative social policy approach, the FTLRP was neither a resounding success nor a complete disaster. The programme actually produced mixed results. The article thus, recommends the use of in-depth, ideologically free and neutral approaches in its analysis so as to reveal its detailed outcomes. Additional studies in which existing land reform policies can be considered in the collective efforts of improving the transformative agenda of the FTLRP across the country are needed.

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