B r i t a i n Z i m b a b w e S o c i e t y
2002 Research Register
Select Abstracts of current research on Zimbabwe.
T F Bryceson
& T MbaraPetrol diseconomies & rural-urban linkages in sub-sahara Africa's globalisation process. Click Rosaleen Duffy Global governance & the politics of the environment in the South Click Emmauelle Harambat Space representations, practices & uses in the Dande region of N. Zimbabwe Click Nick James 'Behind food security: good meals, new delicacies & crying for the old foods.' Learning from food culture in Nembudziya, Gokwe North, Zimbabwe. Click Diana Jeater Law, language, & science: the invention of the 'native mind'. Click Munyaradzi Majonga Mining environment development: the case of small-scale mining & sustainable development in Mutoko communal lands of Zimbabwe. Click JaneL Parpart & Miriam Grant
Constructing difference & mananging development: material & discursive visions of 'progress' & 'modernity/ies' among African elites in Bulawayo. Click Deborah Potts Rural-urban migration under conditions of severe economic stress: Harare in 2001. Click Sue C Schuessler African indigenous healing, knowledge & training, transformation of self, morality, options & coonstraints in seeking treatment for illness. Click Drew Shaw Transgressive sexualities in Zimbabwean writing Click * * *
Deborah Fahy Bryceson, African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
bryceson@fsw.leidenuniv.nlTatenda Mbara,Department of Urban and Rural Planning, University of Zimbabwe
tmbara@sociol.uz.ac.zwPETROL DISECONOMIES AND RURAL-URBAN LINKAGES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA'S GLOBALISATION PROCESS
The blurring of rural and urban space in Sub-Saharan Africa has been a topical theme in recent years. Under economic duress, occupational distinctions between the two have tended to disappear. It is often inferred that burgeoning trade and service sector activities have encouraged greater personal mobility and rural-urban linkages as heightened movement of economic actors bridges the physical distance between town and countryside. Meanwhile, the theme of globalization applied to Africa has tended to suggest that physical distances are contracting as cyberspace takes over. But amidst this debate, the fluctuating cost of petrol as a key determinant of physical movement and distance perception has largely been overlooked. This paper examines Sub- Saharan Africa's rural and urban economies' vulnerability to international oil price fluctuations, asking why this factor has been downplayed. Possible future petrol price trends and their effect on African rural and urban development are probed.
The paper begins with a general consideration of the role of petrol in African economies, followed by an in-depth look at Zimbabwe, a land-locked country particularly vulnerable to petrol crises. Historical patterns of rural-urban movement in Zimbabwe are considered before reviewing recent findings of a study of mobility and livelihoods in a transect running from Harare, the capital city, to Bindura, a secondary city 90 km north of the capital. Changing rural-urban movement and attitudes towards mobility are compared between inner-city, peri-urban, rural and secondary town settlements along the transect based on 2001 survey results. The conclusion revisits the mobility thesis within the globalisation debate in light of the Zimbabwe research findings.
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Rosaleen Duffy, Lancaster University
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND THE POLITICS OF THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE SOUTH
My research interests at the moment centre on global governance and the politics of the environment in the South. I have been working on an ESRC grant entitled The Geopolitics of Bioregions: Conservation and Erosion of National Boundaries (Grant no. R000223013, for more information go to http://www.regard.ac.uk). This research project focused on a comparative study of bioregional environmental management in Southern Africa and Central America. In the context of Southern Africa I have focused on transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs), and especially on local and government level responses to global schemes to create transnational protected areas. My main focus has been the Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou TFCA (between Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa). This has led on to writing about the politics of environmental management and its relationship to tourism and ecotourism, global NGOs, local communities, trafficking in illegal wildlife products and poaching amongst others. In addition, I am working on a project on elephant management with the Smithsonian Institute. I will be writing a piece on the ethics of ivory trading and its role in southern African politics for them.
Finally, I have recently begun a research project entitled Global Governance, Environmental Resources and the Impact of State Collapse in Africa: The Case of Madagascar. This focuses on the impact of illegal gem mining on concepts and practices of global governance through international organisations, funding agencies, international financial institutions, global NGOs and others. This project is funded by Lancaster University.Contact details:
Dr. Rosaleen Duffy
Department of Politics and International Relations
Lancaster University
Bailrigg
Lancaster
LA1 4YL
UK
Tel: 00 44 (0) 1524 592251
Fax: 00 44 (0) 1524 594238
r.duffy@lancaster.ac.uk
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/politics.
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SPACE REPRESENTATIONS, PRACTICES, AND USES IN THE DANDE REGION OF NORTHERN ZIMBABWE
The focus of this DPhil. research is the representations and practices attached to space and its various uses in the eastern part of the mid-Zambezi valley (Dande), a region in northern Zimbabwe.
Since Independence, in 1980, Dande has evolved into a genuine pioneer front with the massive influx of new populations coming mainly from the south of the country and the expansion of cotton cultivation gradually year on year reducing the areas of bush and the domains of wildlife. These events have had a dramatic impact on the valley, transforming not only its physical but also its cultural, social and political landscape.
In considering this particular context of agricultural frontier in which land and its management have become the key issues, and in view of recent anthropological works showing how spatial categories and orientations are linked to the ordering of social experience, the object of this DPhil. research is thus to unravel the exact nature of the changes that took place in Dande during the last twenty years through the study of local perceptions and configurations of space. More specifically, this research describes and analyses the ways in which the inevitable tensions that have arisen from these changes are dealt with locally and how, in this process, new personal and collective identities are generated. By examining the economic, political, social but also symbolic values of space and the particular strategies and practices developed in relation to those by specific groups, we show how the inhabitants of the valley relate to one another, both reproducing pre-existing cultural values and social arrangements and creating new ones.
Furthermore, building upon David Lan's study of Dande at the end of the Liberation war (Guns and rain. Guerrillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe, 1985), and notably his investigation into the role of the mhondoro (ancestral spirits) mediums in the struggle, this research aims at demonstrating how contemporary dynamics of social and cultural change in the valley are embedded into wider historical and regional processes. However, by pushing further Lan's analysis, we also expose how the very multiplicity and diversity of these historical and regional processes make the local social space not one coherent whole, determined by a single organising principle, but rather a plurality of spheres and arenas with which the local agents continuously play and improvise, developing, according to the context, varying identity strategies and thereby constantly redefining and reconfiguring the cultural and social realities around them.
Following up on Lan's study of the role of the mhondoro mediums during the guerrilla war, our research focuses more particularly on the mhondoro mediums and their role in the current perception and management of space in the area, showing how they act both as a force of transformation and as an instrument of reproduction of a local identity and sense of belonging.This research is based on fieldwork carried out in Chisunga, one of the wards of Dande, between October 1999 and December 2000 and includes the analysis of data on past and present settlement patterns, agricultural practices and uses of natural resources, symbolic representations of the landscape, religious practices and kinship arrangements.
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* * *Nick James, Edge Hill College, Ormskirk and Open University
'BEHIND FOOD SECURITY: GOOD MEALS, NEW DELICACIES AND CRYING FOR THE OLD FOODS. LEARNING FROM FOOD CULTURE IN NEMBUDZIYA, GOKWE NORTH, ZIMBABWE'
I am currently working on providing some detail and discussion on the foods generally overlooked in research on household food security. The paper examines the variety of foods known and consumed at various times (temporal change) and in different contexts (spatial distribution). It questions the issue of 'de-localization' of food, and how the place and environmental qualities of Nembudziya are refashioned as a result of consumption and knowledge of foods changing at a rapid rate.
Many of the changes, arguably common in rural Africa, witness the effects of modernisation and globalisation on local economies. Standardisation, more bought foods and a gradual rejection of wild foods. Indeed, Gokwe - once a land known (until the 1960s) for its wild animals, dense woodland and riverine cropping strategies - is transformed following the arrival of in-migrants from the south and especially since cotton was introduced in the early 1970s. By the 1990s cotton and maize were the main cultivated crops. Cotton cropping, according to standard extension advice, needs cleared land devoid of trees, shrubs and other crops. Trees have been cut down and fields have encroached on valuable grazing land (containing small niches of semi-wild conditions). Since the 1970s when semi-arid cultivars were introduced maize has become the second main crop and the dominant food grain.
Simultaneous with and as a consequence of in-migrants and cash crops Nembudziya became, after independence in 1980, part of a national focus for 'rural development' aiming to increase productivity and transform to modern farming methods. That development has seen the loss of many wild foods, decline in small grain cropping, disinterest in 'traditional' foods and the disappearance of minor crops. But not altogether.
What this work shows is that behind the conventional concerns with access to and availability of the staple grains (maize), there are complex nuances in what people know and what people in the late 1990s continue to eat. It is this knowledge, not shrouded in mystery, or hidden behind traditional curtains, that we can learn so much more about African rural livelihoods.
First, wild foods have changed in availability. Second, several edible weeds continue to play an important part in diet especially early in the rainy season. Third, the significance of new and introduced foods cannot be underestimated. These include maize, sunflower, sesame, cassava, sweet potato and the green vegetables grown in gardens. Fourth, 'traditional' foods have seen pressure from wider changes including fewer small grain cereals being grown, and the influence of bought foods, storage systems and labour time. Fifth, 'minor crops' have retained some importance, though under general and specific pressures including labour and soil fertility. Sixth, 'nutrition' and co-operative gardens have seen a standardisation in green vegetables and relish (muriwo) foods available. Seventh, methods of storage and drying continue to help off-set hunger during some months of the year. Eighth, malnutrition is off-set during drought and particular times of the agricultural calendar. However, the evidence of Pellagra provides a strong suggestion that access to green vegetables and fresh foods has declined for some people. Ninth, evidence from research into farming systems shows that in Nembudziya diversity continues with intercropping, rotation, multiple cropping and manuring very common. Moreover, special areas are respected including riverine areas, gawas and sacred woodlands. Finally, the findings show several foods relatively more frequently consumed by wealthy households, the creation of new delicacies and the increase in availability of foods from shops and supermarkets.
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Diana Jeater, History School, UWE, Bristol
LAW, LANGUAGE, & SCIENCE: THE INVENTION OF THE 'NATIVE MIND'.My current project is nearing completion. It is about what happens when humans encounter each other's societies, in circumstances where they each find the other's behaviour strange and potentially threatening. Specifically, it is about white people coming into the territory that they named Southern Rhodesia, and attempting to assert authority (or, failing authority, power) over the peoples already living there. Two thought-systems, as well as two systems of authority, came into contact with each other, each with strong incentives to try to understand the other, even if only to reject the other's beliefs and perceptions.
The project is mostly about 'native administration', although white settlers, missionaries and ethnographers have a part to play. I think that there is a story in which whites were at first struggling to grasp the basic details of the societies they had claimed authority over, and were trying to accumulate the basic data needed to formulate policy. I think there was then a second phase in which they tried to apply their translations and interpretations of African culture and politics in their administrative practice. And then finally, in the face of African autonomy and economic competition, there was a move towards a much more inward-looking attitude towards African culture. Whites came to depend on their own definitions of 'the native mind', and translation was less about interaction with Africans and more about assertions regarding their culture.
I have been looking particularly at two processes: the administration of justice and the translation of indigenous languages. I have spent quite a lot of time thinking about the interface between these two, in court interpretation. I have also been interested in the development of Rhodesian ethnography, and, more broadly, with the question of 'science'. Within my project, 'science' is closely linked to textuality, and written communication, and opposed to orality, and verbal communication. Textuality, like 'science', limits negotiation about what is agreed to be true. It turns belief into object, and confers a sense of fixity and certainty about what is known. The corollary of 'science' is not simply 'superstition', but an alternative epistemology, which places more emphasis on the negotiability of what is known, and raises the possibility of several ways of understanding the same thing. Local African societies in the early twentieth century placed significance on oral testimony and negotiable claims about what was known to be true. This is seen clearly in witnesses' statements to court, and in negotiations around chiefships. Much of what I am studying may be viewed as an attempt by the white administration to make what was negotiable into something that was textual; to enforce 'scientific objectivity' not only as a way of thinking, but as a system of rule.
The project focuses on how the white administrators tried, or gave up trying, to make sense of the African societies, but it is also about how the local peoples tried to make sense of the white people's interventions into their lives. In both cases, the interpretations that the communities put on each other were informed by how they understood themselves. And, in both cases, I think that their perceptions were faulty, and there were material consequences following from those misperceptions.
I hope to have produced a book that encapsulates this project by the end of 2003.
Contact: Diana.Jeater@uwe.ac.uk
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Munyaradzi Majonga
<munyaradzi.majonga@nuffield.oxford.ac.uk>MINING ENVIRONMENT DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF SMALL-SCALE MINING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN MUTOKO COMMUNAL LANDS OF ZIMBABWE
My current work examines the impact of small-scale mining on the communities of Mutoko district in Zimbabwe. While literature on trade liberalisation and the global economic order focuses more on the structural relations between countries, I also discuss local factors that help to explain the varying impact and response to globalisation from within the individual countries. Both domestic and global forces have shaped the development of small scale mining in Mutoko. The study attempts to show how local factors such as the centre-periphery relations between the central government and the local councils affected the country's response to external forces regarding mining activities, which encompass black granite extraction and alluvial gold panning, in Mutoko following the adoption of trade liberalisation policies. By 1990, following the adoption of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme, black granite had become a major foreign currency earner and the central government took control of its royalties away from the local district councils. Also due to the opening up of the economy and the ensuing trade liberalisation policies, gold panning activities also blossomed due to massive retrenchments in the formal sector especially the textile industry. While black granite mining is formalised and its royalties are now controlled by the central state, gold panning is still informal and still popular with most people especially in the dry season when people resort to panning for income.
Therefore the proposed study seeks to explore Zimbabwe's liberalisation policies and their impact on the poor in Mutoko communal lands. With regards to black granite extraction there will be an examination of the decentralisation policy following the redefinition of black granite from a construction stone to a mineral. This has resulted in a power struggle between central and local government based on the contested issue of black granite extraction for the global market in Mutoko. The basic argument is that the tense centre-periphery relations between the government and the Mutoko district council following the former's redefinition of black granite from being a construction stone to a mineral following the adoption of economic reforms in 1990 can only be fully understood when both internal and external dynamics are analysed. The study will base black granite extraction on the history of decentralisation policies in Zimbabwe as well as on the contemporary trade liberalization policies and see how they have influenced decentralisation efforts by the central government regarding royalties from quarrying activities in Mutoko.
The reclassification of black granite from a stone to a mineral has suddenly lifted black granite up the ladder of precious stones. Black granite extraction thus opens a new chapter in the history of Zimbabwe's mining industry since it is one of the very few formal mining activities that are situated in the former African reserves, which have never been important economic zones and areas of capital accumulation for the central government.
It is with this hindsight of a pro-big capital inclination of Zimbabwean political economy that alluvial gold and black granite mining in Mutoko communal areas in the northeast of will be studied. Added to this dimension will be the notion of community development as local people, with various interests and expectations, expect a 'share of the spoils' from a resource they consider as theirs by descent, geography or history. This project, thus, attempts to trace the impact of government policy on black granite extraction (mining) in Mutoko communal areas in north-eastern Zimbabwe as the demand of the product continues to increase on the world market. Black granite extraction also reveals the institutional incongruence between civil and traditional structures of governance that still haunts decentralisation and participation by the majority of rural people in Zimbabwe since colonialism. Alluvial mining reveals the environmental challenges facing many communities as many poor people resort to environmentally damaging activities in their quest for survival. The thesis agenda is to try and find a solution that suits the interests of the local communities, the mining companies, the government and the environment over black granite extraction and alluvial mining in Mutoko.
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Jane L. Parpart, Dalhousie University (History, International Development Studies) & Miriam Grant, University of Calgary (Geography)
CONSTRUCTING DIFFERENCE AND MANAGING DEVELOPMENT: MATERIAL AND DISCURSIVE VISIONS OF "PROGRESS" AND "MODERNITY/IES" AMONG AFRICAN ELITES IN BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE, 1953-1980
This study will investigate the historical evolution of the perceptions, dreams and practices of development, "progress" and 'modernity/ies" for the African urban elite - as it was expressed in the material culture and gendered social space within their households - and as it was practiced in the communities of Pelendaba and Luveve in the city of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. The study adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the African elite during two crucial periods in Zimbabwe's history (1953-1964, the Federal period; 1964-1980, the period of settler rule).
The urban elite in Africa has played and continues to play a key role in the way development, "progress" and "modernity/ies" have been defined and pursued in colonial and postcolonial African societies. Yet we know far too little about the way the urban elite has understood these concepts and their relationship to them over time, how these understandings have combined and redefined various strands of thinking, both from colonial and "traditional" sources, and how these definitions have been translated into concrete lived practices in daily life and community affairs, both locally and nationally. This study is a detailed historical and spatial analysis of the urban elite in Bulawayo, especially in the relatively more affluent township of Pelandaba. It places the emerging elite in the broader context of changing political, social and economic forces. Elites are thus not seen as a separate group, but as an often fractured and fluid group of people seeking to advance themselves while also striving to live successfully as part of a larger community. The contradiction between individual ambitions and the needs of the larger African community affected elite self-perceptions and actions. Moreover, criticisms from both Europeans and "less fortunate" Africans also created an on-going dilemma about self-identity, individual aspirations and political and social loyalties. These changed over time as the settler regime became locked in battle with nationalist forces.
This study draws on archival sources, interviews, and an analysis of housing in Pelendaba. The ongoing archival work is raising some important questions about the self-perceptions of the elite, and their relations with "ordinary" Africans as well as Europeans in an atmosphere of increasing racial tension and rising nationalist fervor. The contradiction between individual and community aspirations and their impact on elite self-perceptions, especially their role as arbiters of progress and modernity, is a central focus of the current research. Many more questions will no doubt arise. We welcome suggestions and ideas. We can be reached at:
parpart@is.dal.ca
grant@acs.ucalgary.ca
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Deborah Potts
Geography Department, [Kings College London],
E mail: dp6@soas.ac.ukRURAL-URBAN MIGRATION UNDER CONDITIONS OF SEVERE ECONOMIC STRESS: HARARE, ZIMBABWE IN 2001
Last year a further survey in an ongoing longitudinal research project on the nature of migration ot Harare since independence was conducted with my local colleague, Dr. Chris Mutambirwa.
The research sought to identify and analyse the nature of contemporary rural-urban migration, focussing on migrants who came to live in Harare since 1997 and how their migration trajectories and attitudes had been influenced by Zimbabwe's devastating economic decline with urban-based investment and formal employment having declined both relatively and absolutely. The fast-track land reform process also has significant implications for the conditions under which rural-urban migration operate. Key questions included to what extent unemployment, the informalization of employment, and falling real incomes had influenced migrants' motivations for urbanward migration and their plans for length of urban residence, and whether the fast-track land programme is influencing their decisions and perceptions. The methodology included structured and semi-structured questionnaires among a random sample of recent migrants in low-income areas and interviews with key informants in the city. Over 300 migrants were interviewed. The data have yet to be fully analysed.
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Sue C. Schuessler
3720 Winchell Avenue #P304 · Kalamazoo, MI 49008 · 616-337-7054 · sschuess@kzoo.eduAfrican Indigenous Healing * Knowledge & Training * Transformation of Self * Morality * Options & Constraints in Seeking Treatment for Illness
I lived with a traditional healer in Southwestern Zimbabwe for a year. The healer is an official of the Bulawayo branch of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healing Association and had several thwasas, students in training, also in residence at her healing center. The practices in her network of healers represented -- using the healer's analogy -- a "marriage" between the Khulu, i.e. Grandfather (Ngoma) and the Gogo, i.e. Grandmother (Mwali High God Religion) Spirits. In my dissertation, The Children of the Crocodile: Grieving and Healing in Southwestern Zimbabwe, I described therapeutic ritual practiced by her network and how it transforms the novices/patients towards a greater wholeness through expansion of sense of self. The healer frequently emphasized "having a good heart" and doing what is good for the community as crucial to being a good healer, triggering my interest in the "The Discourse of Morality in Training Healers." The healer's husband became critically ill and died while I was there. Often I was part of the therapy-managing group and went to several types of healers. I plan to write about "Choices and Constraints in Seeking Treatment for Serious Illness."Including traditional healers in any collaboration in the fight against HIV/AIDS
If anyone has any ideas about how I might contribute to this, please let me know. I feel an urgency about including traditional healers. In Southwestern Zimbabwe, they have actively sought biomedical knowledge and incorporated that which is appropriate into their overall approach. Traditional healers can provide effective HIV/AIDS education for the large percentage of the population that goes to them. In addition, they help alleviate some symptoms and improve quality of life for those with HIV/AIDS. Though in many ways the traditional healers represent the repository of cultural values, they are an important means of bringing about cultural change (such as the empowerment of women) that may help decrease the spread of HIV/AIDS and improve general health. Many healers express and channel cultural change in a culturally appropriate idiom that legitimates it.Political, Social, and Economic Issues Underlying the Increase in Infectious Disease
I want to do additional research to deepen my comprehension of how Ngoma and Mwali are attempting to deal with the political, social, and economic issues underlying the increase in infectious diseases as well as the social disruption that the high mortality rate is causing. My research suggests that they may be addressing solutions on multiple levels. Some are particular current problems that need an ad hoc solution. At another level, they seem to be utilizing an approach based on the belief that the spirits associated with Mwali demand a sense of responsibility for community well-being, a useful model for coping with social disruption.
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Drew Shaw,
drew.shaw@btinternet.comTRANSGRESSIVE SEXUALITIES IN ZIMBABWEAN WRITING
My PhD dissertation - still work in progress - is on the following topic. This is a brief summary.
Although sexuality is often marginalised in academic discussions, it is nevertheless an important field of critical enquiry. In fact, I argue that it is central to a full understanding of many social and political issues in Zimbabwe. This specific project focuses on transgressive sexualities, an even more neglected yet interesting subject.
Sexual 'perversion' is a taboo topic in Zimbabwe, but for some writers it constitutes an important theme. 'Perversion' has been defined in various ways by the establishment. My dissertation considers the significance of inter-racial relationships, prostitution, homosexuality, and cross-dressing in various texts. Dambudzo Marechera is the springboard for this investigation because he has explored the subject of sexuality most extensively and explicitly in the Zimbabwean context. However, I also consider texts by authors such as Doris Lessing, Charles Mungoshi, Nevanji Madanhire, Tsitsi Dangarembga and Yvonne Vera. At the moment, my research is divided into the following sections:
1. Inter-racial relationships in Lessing and Marechera
2. The significance of prostitution in Marechera
3. Cross-dressing in Marechera, Dangarembga, and other writers
4. Homosexuality in Marechera, Mungoshi and MadanhireI begin with an inter-racial relationship in Doris Lessing's writing and end with the theme of homosexuality in Charles Mungoshi's writing. The threat of sex between black men and white women - 'black peril' - is a theme in Lessing's The Grass is Singing and is also a provocative issue in the writings of Marechera. A number of questions arise: Why was the Southern Rhodesian settler state so anxious about inter-racial sex? And why has the nation-state of Zimbabwe, like its colonial predecessor, also been keen to regulate sexual behaviour? Prostitutes and homosexuals, for example, have been castigated as enemies of Zimbabwean society. Why is sex outside certain parameters considered a social menace? What 'threat' do transgressors such as prostitutes, homosexuals and transvestites pose to Zimbabwean society? Who defines the boundaries of appropriate sexual behaviour and why? Also, how is sexual transgression represented in Zimbabwean literature and what is its wider significance? I attempt to address these and other questions in my study.
If you have related research interests, please get in touch. Comments and suggestions would be most welcome!
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