Society, power, and land in northeastern Zimbabwe, ca. 1560-1960 / Admire Mseba.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mseba, Admire, author.

Series:

New African histories series

New African histories

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Land reform--Zimbabwe--History.

Land reform.

Land tenure--Zimbabwe--History.

Land tenure.

Zimbabwe--Colonial influence.

Zimbabwe.

Physical Description:

xvii, 254 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Athens : Ohio University Press, [2024]

Summary:

"A little over two decades ago, Zimbabwe undertook its Fast Track Land Reform Programme. Critics saw it as nothing more than an assault on human and property rights for political expedience by a ruling elite that was fast losing its power. In contrast, those sympathetic to the land reform program saw it as fundamental to the righting of colonialism's historical wrongs. Yet, rural displacements at the hands of state actors, or of those closely connected to them, continue. As in the past, the continuing land conflicts are mostly understood as the result of the actions of an authoritarian state that exploits its control of land for the political and economic benefit of those who inhabit it. These explanations share one thing in common: each understands the country's perpetual land questions in terms of the actions or inactions of the colonial or the postcolonial state. This book refocuses attention on how regimes of power rooted in kinship, gender, generation, and status have, individually and in combination, informed access to land in precolonial northeastern Zimbabwe. It then examines how these regimes of power interacted with colonial policies to inform the African experience in colonial Zimbabwe. Further, the book places land and the ability to ensure its fecundity at the center of the making and moderation of precolonial political power and how this power was impacted by the imposition of colonial rule. Tracing the dynamics of land and power from precolonial times, together with their entanglement with colonial policies, is important, for this relationship is almost always neglected by both scholars and policymakers drawn to the high drama of colonial and postcolonial politics of land. This oversight has real consequences on our understandings of landed inequalities and how they are addressed. When Zimbabwe's postcolonial state focused on colonially induced racialized land inequalities, its land reform efforts left older forms of landed inequalities based on gender, generation, and ideas of belonging intact. The book, which details these inequalities, reminds Zimbabweans and others that if the quest for equity espoused in postcolonial land reforms is to be meaningful, it must be attentive to both colonially induced inequalities and those enduring disparities that predated, were deepened by, and outlived colonial rule. At the same time, Zimbabweans who now live with a postcolonial state that is increasingly centralizing power over land may well learn from past societies' creative efforts to limit the authority of their leaders"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction. Power and the Deep History of Zimbabwe's Land Question

Knowing the Land, Marking Social Hierarchies and Legitimating Claims to Land and Power

In the Shadow of Kingdoms

Changing Geographies and Old Registers of Power

Imagining Traditions, Making Authority

Changes in the Law

Accessing Land and Contesting Authority Outside the Reserves of Northeastern Zimbabwe

Postscript. The Longue Durée, the Recent Past and the Nexus between Land and Power.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780821425893

0821425897

9780821425886

0821425889

OCLC:

1426289006