B r i t a i n Z i m b a b w e S o c i e t y
A. Chimhowu & N. James Social Change & Development in the Northwest of Zimbabwe (Book Proposal) Click Pauline Dodgson-Katiyo Post-independence Zimbabwean Writing in English Click Sara Rich Dorman State and Society Click David McDermott Hughes re papers: on Hydrology & land claims, and on Lake Kariba & conservation Click Lynette Jackson Completion of book on history of Ingutsheni mental hospital. New project on state & medical responses to mobile women in colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe Click Vimbai Kwashirai Environmental Impacts of Land Reform in Zimbabwe Click Nyambara, Pius S.
Lists his recent publications on the economic history of Zimbabwe with special reference to cotton, and to land and other issues in the Gokwe region ofNorth West Zimbabwe Click Ranka Primorac Displacement, Identity & Fictional Formation in Selected Recent Zimbabwean Novels
Click Rowan Roenisch Vernacular Architecture in North East Zimbabwe Click Timothy Scarnecchia Fighting for the Underdog: Populism & Democratic Cultural Traditions in Colonial Harare, Zimbabwe , 1945-1965 Click Allison Shutt A History of Colonial Etiquette, 1930-1962 Click Wendy Williams (Un)covering the land issue. Zimbabwean & British media reportage, news production practices & the role in policymaking. Click Wendy Urban-
Mead'Faith, Gender & Nation: the Brethren in Christ Church in Matabeleland,
colonial Zimbabwe, 1898-1978'Click Hristina Dimitrova
VassilevaDynamics of Human Rights (with case study of Zimbabwe) - proposed PhD project Click Rayah Feldman re @Positive Women Voices & Choices - Zimbabwe Report Click Dr Steve Kibble re Catholic Institute for International Relations publications & advocacy Click Akiko Mizoguchi re work on Marechera & on travel writing Click Dr Tony Simoes da Silva Southern African autobiographies/literary theory Click Dr Debby Potts Update on work on labour migration amid work on labour migration Click Diana Jeater Writng up on 'the invention of the 'native mind' & future palns Click Jane Parpart & Miriam Grant Update on 'Constructing Difference & Managing Development: material & discursive visions of "progress" and "modernity/ies" among African elites' Click * * *
Admos Chimhowu, University of Manchester: admos.o.chimhowu@stud.man.ac.uk
Nick James, Open University: Sekayijames@aol.comSocial Change and Development in the Northwest of Zimbabwe (Book Proposal)
The north-western region refers to a range of districts that include Binga, Gokwe North, Gokwe South, Kariba, and Hurungwe. Besides their location in the northwest of the country the districts share three key attributes. Firstly, they all belong to what was known as the 'Sebungwe planning region'. The then head of state of the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia government in 1978 declared this region a planning region. The districts therefore share this official recognition as belonging to a special development area.
Secondly, this region was, at least until the late 1980s, a frontier both in people's imagination and in geographical reality. The setting for the districts is harsh, inhospitable and relatively unconnected. A combination of high temperatures, relatively low rainfall, the presence of tsetse fly and malaria carrying mosquitoes made for unattractive livelihood opportunities.
Nevertheless, thirdly, the districts share a relatively recent history of in-migration on a significant scale. Since the 1960s and particularly following independence in 1980 the region has experienced notable socio-economic and agrarian transformation. The effects following the introduction of cotton cannot be underestimated.
Considerable research work has been done on the changing geographies in this part of Zimbabwe. Researchers from several disciplines have examined physical, social and economic transformations of the northwest. Nevertheless, what has not emerged however is a unifying body of theory or an approach to bring these works together with some formative synthesis.
The aim of this book proposal is to bring together and synthesise the range of findings from several parts of the region. The thinking behind this proposal is more than simply gathering the works from a range of researchers working in one region. The theoretical approach, a new regional geography, engages a more active, dynamic and responsive attention to the Northwest. It achieves this by mixing and relating findings from different scales and disciplines. One is the political economy or structural analysis, another is the question of unfolding social relations and a third strand is analysis of cultural dynamics in particular settings. What are the distinct or particular characteristics of the NW? Ironically, it is the social distance and relative geographical isolation from the rest of the nation that make this region perhaps stand out from others. The isolation and including the recent upheavals in population in-migration have further led to diversity in histories and cultures.
Issues for consideration:
§ 'Frontier' or 'virgin' land for new development.
§ The colonial handling of settlement and resettlement since the 1940s (and before).
§ The tsetse, malaria and wild animal concerns.
§ The Kariba, coal and copper enterprises.
§ Ethnic relations and conflict.
§ The Shangwe issue.
§ The Tonga resettlement.
§ Nevana and regional religion.
§ Cotton farming.
§ The soil, the land and the environment.From the spatial and temporal complexity in the wider political economy, many contexts can be drawn upon. The many worlds of people and their places are rapidly changing, and it is important for geography and history to interpret and explain what is unfolding in the region.
Resources permitting, it is proposed to hold a workshop to which the possible contributors are invited to come and present their papers. Possible theme for BZS? Alternatively attempts could be made to e-conference. The papers could then be edited for the publication. Return to index
Pauline Dodgson-Katiyo: Post-Independence Zimbabwean Writing in English p.dodgson-katiyo@apu.ac.uk
My current research on Zimbabwe is a study of the literature published between the mid 1980s and the early 2000s. I am interested in the ways in which post-independence Zimbabwean literature began to develop oppositional discourses, which, to varying degrees, presented a critique of the nationalist political and social agenda.
Eldred Jones has identified two significant developments in contemporary African writing. The first is "the increasing importance of women writers and the consequent focus on women in society" and the second is a literature of war that comes down on the side of the people against politicians and oppressors. These two developments are highly visible strands in Zimbabwean writing but they are often seen as separate. The war narratives, some of which are written by ex-combatants (for example, I.V. Mazorodze's Silent Journey from the East, 1989) can be seen as the stories of freedom fighters who suffered because of the corruption or incompetence of the military and political leadership. Writing by women, such as Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions (1988) and the fiction of Yvonne Vera (1992 - 2002) can be seen as literature which engages with issues of modernity and which foregrounds the oppression of women while paying less attention to the detail of the liberation struggle than the male-authored war stories.
My study centres on the conjuncture of these two strands. I am interested in why they emerged in the mid to late 1980s, how they inscribe alternative histories and what they tell us about changing priorities in contemporary Zimbabwean society. Exploring the modes of writing, the documentary/realist and the poetic/modernist, reveals that the division between the two strands is not clear-cut. The war novels draw on a tradition of writing which includes women's testimony of the struggle for liberation and the literature foregrounding gender, particularly that of Vera, tells the hidden histories of the war. Moreover, this erosion of divisions is made explicit in a number of "crossover" texts which include Chenjerai Hove's Bones (1988) and Charles Samupindi's Pawns (1992).
Pauline Dodgson-Katiyo
Dean, School of Arts and Letters
Anglia Polytechnic University
Cambridge
Return to indexSara Rich Dorman: State & Society sara.dorman@ed.ac.uk
My research explores the bases of state and society relations that have developed out of the nationalist struggle, and the impact of those on state and nation-building processes. African politics is often conceived narrowly in terms of either 'patrimonialism' or coercive authoritarianism. Zimbabwe's experience suggest that not-withstanding patrimonial tendencies and coercion, African politics cannot be reduced only to the study of 'big men and big bellies'.
I argue that Zimbabwe's durable authoritarianism cannot be understood in terms of the "politics of the belly." Rather, Robert Mugabe and his ZANU(PF) party, upon coming to power in 1981, undertook a process of nation-building. This was intended to institutionalize ZANU(PF)'s control of the political sphere and monopoly on political representation in post-independence in Zimbabwe, in a durable authoritarian regime.
But the regime's narrow and self-serving nation-building fails to bring the desired benefits of 'participation' and 'liberation'. These issues of nation- state- and party-building are not exclusive to Zimbabwe, but Zimbabwe has often been portrayed as a peaceful and stable African state. The analysis explores this paradox, revealing how the failure to resolve Zimbabwe's divisions leads to the crisis that manifests itself in 2000-2002.
Transcending any narrow conception of spoils politics or clientelism, this nation-building project comprised a mix of discursive and material strategies. These included efforts to foster national unity and delegitimize autonomous political action outside the ruling-party, as well as the creation of an inclusive support coalition providing a positive societal base for regime hegemony.
Building this coalition entailed the 'demobilization' of ZANU(PF)'s original nationalist constituency which had backed it during the liberation war, and the inclusion of new groups such donors, white farmers and business interests. Still, nation-building did not take place without coercion. Secure in its control over the state, the regime used the security forces to suppress those who challenged its political monopoly or who otherwise resisted incorporation on its terms.While the unravelling of the nation-building project in the late 1990s does correlate with increasingly patrimonial and erratic behaviour on the part of the Mugabe and the ZANU(PF) hierarchy, nonetheless it was not the inevitable expression of some latent African tendency to sultanism. Rather the regime eventually began to manifest internal contradictions, losing control of the strategically placed war veterans whose demands for compensation led to the financial exhaustion of the politics of inclusion. In turn, this contributed to the breakdown of the support coalition, as manifest in the exclusion of previously incorporated groups such as the white farmers who were subsequently despoiled. This collapse of the coalition - combined with the emergence of dissidents within ZANU(PF) and Zimbabwean civil society more generally - set the stage for opposition to mobilize after 1997, and mount a critique of ZANU(PF)'s exclusivist notion of nation-building. While Mugabe and ZANU(PF) managed to see off their opponents, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), by virtue of their control over the security apparatus and willingness to deploy a politics of predation and terror, it is unlikely that coercion alone can replace the nation-building project which was previously the basis of their rule. Rather, nation-building has been replaced by a calculated process of nation-destroying.
My current research project undertakes to examine the experience of social and political actors ('civil society') in Zimbabwe (NGOs, Trades Unions, Churches, and Academics), since the violent election of 2000. It will examine how their relations with the state and with each other have developed and changed, in these new, more conflict-filled times.
Sara Rich Dorman
Lecturer in African and International Politics, School of Social and Political Studies
Adam Ferguson Bldg., George Square, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9LL
phone: 0131 650 4239 Return to index
David McDermott Hughes: dhughes@aesop.rutgers.edu
I have two papers currently in production:"Hydro-power: farm dams, fish ecology, and white claims to land in Zimbabwe"
White farmers have felt entitled to own the lion's share of Zimbabwe's fertile land because they claim to have made that land. They are latter-day Lockeans, and this paper explores the multiple levels and internal contradictions in that notion of property as it operates in contemporary Zimbabwe. In the last 10-15 years, large-scale commercial farmers redesigned the landscape, altering the balance between soil and water. In the 1990s, they built more and larger dams then ever before. To make use of this impounded water, they re-contoured the highveld and "squared up lands."
The resultant hydrology gave farmers maximum control of moisture, growth, and labor. Meanwhile, many farmers grew concerned to protect "nature." They stocked dams with American bass and sculpted shorelines in order to provide habitat for fish and birdlife. The dams became islands of anthropogenic biodiversity as well as engines of wealth. In their own minds, white farmers reconciled production and environmentalism, gaining strength from both of these bases of legitimacy. It was not enough, of course. Now, the Zimbabwean state has evicted the bulk of white farmers. Unmaintained, their dams will break, destroying or restoring the Zimbabwean landscape - depending on your point of view.
From industrial wasteland to wilderness: how Zimbabwean conservationists redeemed Lake Kariba.
For "communicating science and park values to the public"The Mid-Zambezi Valley is one of Africa's most disturbed ecosystems; the Mid-Zambezi Valley is one of Africa's most pristine ecosytems. These divergent views of Lake Kariba and its protected areas (including Matusadona National Park) are both true, and conservationists have preached both of these messages to the public. In 1958, engineers dammed the Zambezi River for hydropower, inundating 5580 square km of riverine and scrub woodland. Scientists and popular writers described the ensuing lake as an ecological catastrophe.
Yet, even as the reservoir filled, these authorities crafted a different message for the public: the dam, they said, was creating an artificial, lakeshore with tremendous biodiversity, beauty, and scope for tourism. Along that 2000 km shoreline, the government Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) proclaimed a national park, a national recreation area, and two controlled hunting areas. This complex soon became a prime destination for visitors and habitat for endangered mammals (including the African elephant and black rhino).
But was Kariba wild? The Department of National Parks - along with writers and photographers - grappled with this question through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Popular books claimed that the abundant flora and fauna of the lakeshore redeemed the dam-builders. Biologists and ecologists assessed the degree to which the lake had restabilized. By the 1990s, spokespeople for the Lake tacitly agreed to call it (and market it as) "wilderness." This improbable conclusion has allowed conservationists and tourists to make use of a fundamentally altered landscape. Such flexibility of mind - if only it were recognized as such - might help solve conservation conflicts in Africa as well as America.
Assistant Professor, Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University
55 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 USA
tel: 732-932-9153 ext. 361, fax: 732-932-6667until 1 August 2003:
Visiting Research Associate, Department of Economic History, University of Zimbabwe
PO Box MP167, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe
tel: +263-4-252025, +263-91-916881 Return to index
Lynette Jackson: lajackso@uic.eduAssistant Professor, Department of History and the Gender & Women's Studies Program, University of Illinois at Chicago
I have finally completed my book on the history of the Ingutsheni mental hospital, which is under consideration at Cornell University Press, History of Psychiatry Series. The current title is: "Surfacing Up": Madness, Institutionalization and Social Order in Colonial Zimbabwe.
The other project which will be my next book, is an extension of the research that I have conducted over the years on state and medical responses to mobile women in colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe. The working title for this is: When Women Walk: Sexualized Borders and the State in Colonial and Postcolonial Zimbabwe. This book looks at three areas of contestations and confrontations between traveling women and the state in colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe: sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS; mental illness and cross border trading.
Part of this work includes discussion of early postcolonial reconstructions of mental health discourse. There is a focus on the flamboyant first Zimbabwean minister of health, Dr. Herbert Ushewokunze and two exceptional traditional healers who worked with him.
Lynette Jackson, Assistant Professor, Department of History and the Gender & Women's Studies Program
Gender & Women's Studies Program (m/c 360)
3110D Behavioral Sciences Building, 1007 West Harrison Street, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607
Phone: (312) 413-2457
Fax: (312) 355-4478 Return to index
Vimbai Kwashirai: Land Reform in Zimbabwe: Environmental Impacts vimbai.kwashirai@linacre.oxford.ac.uk
My current research on the environmental impacts of land reform in Zimbabwe uses source material consisting of contemporary newspapers, magazines, journals, interviews, personal observations and experience. I take up the issue of land reform from February 2000 to the present focusing my attention on the law, court battles, compensation, the A1 and A2 model land settlement schemes. I provide an analysis of official statistics of settled farmers examining the main beneficiaries of land reform in the country.
Land reform has come at a price on the natural environment. The immediate environmental impacts of land liberalisation in Zimbabwe include deforestation, siltation and rampant poaching of wild fauna and flora. The inexperienced new farmers generally lack guidance and knowledge on sustainable farming practices. There is widespread cutting down of trees to clear fields, for domestic use and energy purposes. Firewood traders operating on lands close to all cities and towns where there is a ready market worsen deforestation activities. Firewood vendors pose the greatest threat to the forest asset in Zimbabwe. Since the country does not have an environmental policy, any authority does not regulate the cutting down of trees. The Forest Commission and other organisations interested in preserving the ecosystem lack the legal and practical means to enforce sustainable woodland use.
Land liberalisation opened much of the country to gold panning activities on a scale never seen before. It is estimated that more than half a million gold panners work on old mines but notably riverbanks on the high veld and the Great Dyke areas of the country. Gold panning methods involve the use of rudimentary tools like hoes, picks and shovels burrowing into the gold nearing reefs. This has left dangerous pits that kill both people and wild game. Vegetation and the beauty of river valleys are destroyed. Soil erosion and siltation have increased damaging many water sources. The use of chemicals such as mercury in gold panning pollutes the water killing aquatic life.
Another interesting development resulting from an opening of land to many players has been the problem of poaching. AK wielding gangs shoot wild game in national parks defying any controls. The authorities appear to be overwhelmed by this new hunting culture. It is said some hunters are actually hired by well-connected and powerful individuals who are difficult to prosecute under existing legal provisions for illegal hunting. Poaching threatens the wildlife heritage of the country in a manner parallel to what is happening to vegetation. My research examines these and other environmental impacts giving particular case studies from across the country. Return to index
Nyambara, Pius S: m_mangwende@hotmail.com
Lecturer and Chairman of Department
Department of Economic History
University of Zimbabwe
P. O. Box 167, Mt Pleasant, HARAREphone Harare 303211 Ext.1239; 011419041.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Refereed Articles
"The Origins and Development of the Cotton Industry in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1903-1935," Eastern African Social Science Research Review, Vo. 7, No. 1 (1989): 141-156."Colonial Policy and Peasant Cotton Agriculture in Southern Rhodesia, 1904-1953," International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 33, No.1 (2000): 81-111.
"Immigrants, 'Traditional' leaders and the Rhodesian State: The Power of Communal Land Tenure and the Politics of Land Acquisition in Gokwe, Zimbabwe, 1963-1979", Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4, (2001): 771-791.
"The Closing Frontier: Cotton, Immigrants and the Squatter Menace in Gokwe villages in the 1980s and 1990s," Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 1, No. 4(2001): 534-549.
"The politics of land acquisition and struggles over land in the 'Communal' areas of Zimbabwe: the case of the Gokwe region of Northwestern Zimbabwe in the 1980s and 1990s,' Africa, Vol. 71, No. 2(2001): 54-108."Madheruka and Shangwe: Ethnic Identities and the culture of Modernity in Gokwe, northwestern Zimbabwe, 1963-1979," Journal of African History, Vol. 43, No. 2(2002): 287-306.
Chapters in Books
"Land Acquisition, commercialization and socio-economic differentiation in the Gokwe district of Zimbabwe, 1945-1990" in A. Mlambo & E. Pangeti, (eds.), The Zimbabwean Economy, 1930s to 1990 (Harare: University of Zimbabwe): 272-310.Unrefereed Publications
"Rural landlords, rural tenants and the sharecropping complex in Gokwe, Northwestern Zimbabwe, 1980s-2000," in New Agrarian Contracts in Zimbabwe: Innovations in Production and Leisure: Proceedings of Workshop Hosted by the Department of Economic History, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, 13 September 2002, 73-89."The Politics of Land Acquisition and Agrarian Differentiation in the Communal Areas of Zimbabwe," in Yuka Suzuki and Eric Worby (eds.), Zimbabwe: The Politics of Crisis and the Crisis of Politics: A Meeting of Concerned Scholars held at Tale University, May 15, 2000. (Yale University: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 2001): 34-40.
Consultancy Work
(A) New Agrarian Contracts in Zimbabwe Project (August 2000 - March 2003)
Worked on a consultancy research project on: "New Agrarian Contracts in Zimbabwe in the context of the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme." The research project was sponsored by USAID through LTC, University of Wisconsin-Madison, under the BASIS Programme. The research resulted in the production of two consultancy papers:
(i) "Rural landlords, rural tenants and the sharecropping complex in Gokwe, northwestern Zimbabwe, 1980s- 2002";
(ii) "Seed Cotton Pricing and Marketing in the era of Market Liberalization: the case of small holder cotton growers in Gokwe." Return to index
Ranka Primorac, Displacement, Identity and Fictional Formation in Selected Recent Zimbabwean Novels
ranka.primorac@ntu.ac.uk
Nottingham Trent University
11 St George's Mansions, Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1P 4RZBelow is the abstract of the Ph.D. thesis on contemporary Zimbabwean fiction that I have just completed at Nottingham Trent University, UK. I am interested in questions to do with spatiality and temporality in fictional texts, comparative approaches to non-western narratives and the intersections between textual ideologies and genre.
ABSTRACT
The thesis analyses narrative displacement in relation to identity construction and fictional formation in selected recent Zimbabwean novels in English: Chenjerai Hove's Bones (1988), Shadows (1991) and Ancestors (1996); Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions (1988); Nozipo Maraire's Zenzele (1996); Shimmer Chinodya's Harvest of Thorns (1989); Alexander Kanengoni's Echoing Silences (1997) and Yvonne Vera's Nehanda (1993), Without a Name (1994), Under the Tongue (1996), Butterfly Burning (1998) and The Stone Virgins (2002).
Chapter One problematises the concept of fictional formation, and argues that these twelve novels - published in English after Zimbabwe's independence, and known and acclaimed both locally and internationally - are a key part of the continuity of the Zimbabwean pre-independence 'non-axiological' novelistic formations. The thesis understands 'displacement' as a narratively-constructed movement across a boundary, and argues that identities produced by narrative fictional texts are closely bound up with the manner in which the texts construct such movement, and therefore also with the models of space-time that they bring into being.
Chapters Two and Three problematise the notion of the textual boundary, and argue that semantic boundaries constructed by novels are always spatial, but that they are never only spatial - in other words, that novelistic space-times are inseparable from novelistic ideologies. Chapter Two situates the theoretical apparatus adopted by the thesis in relation to the existing critical frameworks for the reading of Zimbabwean fiction, while Chapter Three outlines a model of the wider intertextual/social context against which Zimbabwean fictional space-times may be viewed.
Chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven analyse displacement and narrative space-times in the novels themselves, grouping them according to chronology, the authors' gender and the spatio-temporal structuring of their narrative worlds.
Among the concluding remarks contained in Chapter Eight is the view that these recent Zimbabwean novels may be read as expressions of the lack of certain basic spatio-temporal rights in post-independence Zimbabwe.
Return to indexRowan Roenisch: Vernacular Architecture in North East Zimbabwerpmr@dmu.ac.uk
Little recent research has been undertaken into contemporary vernacular architecture in Zimbabwe. This particular research is focused on pole and dhaka (timber and clay) vernacular architecture in north east Zimbabwe.
Major fieldwork was undertaken July to September 1996 in Ranja, Takhuranaho and Nyamande/Barichoro villages under Chief Mukota and Chief Chikwizo in Mudzi District and also in Murondotsimba village in the north at Vira, Guruve District. This was sponsored by the National Museum of Human Sciences in Harare, Raleigh International and financed by the Nuffield Foundation and De Montfort University.
Thirty homesteads were photographed, measured plans of the homestead drawn and occupants interviewed.
Writing up has proceeded and peer reviewed papers have been presented at consecutive conferences of IASTE (International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments, University of California) in Trani, Italy, October 2000 and Hong Kong, December, 2002.
Peer reviewed articles based on the papers have been published in IASTE 'Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Working Papers Series' entitled 'Vernacular as Invented Tradition: Variety in Zimbabwean Vernacular Architecture' in December 2000; and 'Mental Maps and Shifting Boundaries: The Invisible Boundaries of the Zimbabwean Shona and Tonga Home' in March 2003.
Contextualisation of the research and further papers planned. Contact Rowan Roenisch at rpmr@dmu.ac.uk
De Montfort University. Return to indexTimothy Scarnecchia: Fighting for the Underdog: Populism and Democratic Cultural Traditions
in Colonial Harare, Zimbabwe, 1945-1965 scarnecchia@yahoo.com
This book seeks to bring to the current debate on Zimbabwe an appreciation of other possibilities prior to the factionalism and vigilantism of today's political culture. These alternative visions of society and governance were expressed in the cultural politics of township civic organizations, African religious communities, trade unions, and generational politics. Fundamentally a history of Harare's African communities, my work will concentrate on individuals and movements that sought alternative forms of social and cultural transformation prior to the dominance of a nationalist movement predicated on political violence. A key character in my book will be the politician Charles Mzingeli who played a major role as a leader in the African townships of colonial Harare from World War Two to the mid-1950s. Mzingeli's leadership combined a strong will and determination to fight the injustices of racial segregation with a commitment to non-violence. The title for my book comes from one of his favorite phrases, "fighting for the underdog", as he built a civic organization to help those without political voice or economic opportunities. My work will show how a politics of inclusion, originating with Mzingeli, gained strength in the urban areas but was forced to give way to an elitist and violent politics by the 1960s.
Another central character is a female healer, Mai (Mother) Chaza, who established a healing community, the Guta re Jehova ("City of God"), just outside colonial Harare in the early 1950s. Interviews with former and current members will present a new interpretation of how this religious experiment constituted a utopian community in response to the problems found within colonial Harare in the mid-1950s. The decisive role played by trade unions in advancing populist and democratic political models will be explored through the career of Reuben Jamela. Often in cooperation with Mzingeli, Jamela developed a populist union organization that pushed for greater African participation in the economic, social, and political life of the city. Similarly, women working within social welfare organizations and African women's clubs provided new possibilities for African women to advance in society more generally. I will explore how this charitable and educational work done to help "uplift" the poorer and less educated became more difficult to carry out by the mid-1950s, as the fragile bonds of cross-class cooperation began to breakdown.
A younger generation of activists, impatient with the limited opportunities available to them in the city, represents another source of utopian social ideas. This generation found expression in the Salisbury City Youth League under the leadership of George Nyandoro and James Chikerema. My work will offer a new interpretation of the change in leadership from this community-based group of young people to a more educated group of leaders, such as Robert Mugabe, that combined more ambitious goals with cosmopolitan notions of how to organize a mass political movement. Contrary to prevailing views of this period as the birth of nationalism in Zimbabwe, my work will investigate how this new politics threatened the democratic traditions developed in previous years.
The concluding chapters will examine political factionalism within the broader context of international involvement with Zimbabwean nationalism. Reuben Jamela's career in the 1960s, in particular, personified the tension between local and international demands and influences. An important subtext here will be the changing relations between the United States government and Zimbabwean nationalism. Jamela adeptly negotiated his role as a pro-Western trade unionist and nationalist politician for the better part of two years. By 1961, however, it had become difficult for him to keep the trade union movement free of interference from the nationalist movement under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo. This battle to control the trade union movement became one of the first conflicts in Salisbury to pitch African urban residents against one another based on their political allegiances. The violence in the township between Jamela's and Nkomo's youth leagues served as a precursor to a more intensive period of urban political violence, lasting from 1962 to 1965. My work will examine the urban political violence of that period and draw parallels with the current political situation in the Mbare and Highfield residential areas. This book is based on research and interviews completed in Harare, London, Oxford, and Washington, D.C. Please address comments, suggestions, and questions to: scarnecchia@yahoo.com
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Allison Shutt: A history of colonial etiquette, 1930-1962 Shutt@Hendrix.edu
My current project is a history of colonial etiquette in Zimbabwe, c. 1930-1962. In using etiquette as a prism into society I mean more than 'knife and fork' doctrines (although other researchers have used just that to understand colonial society), but also the everyday intimacies (verbal and non-verbal) of life through which people understood others. Because etiquette provides rules and patterns for individual and community interaction, particularly in deeply divided societies like colonial Zimbabwe's, it offers a way into not only peoples' intimate world and their ideas of domination and liberation, but also the larger forces shaping society. In particular, an exploration of etiquette, both how and why it is obeyed and defied, allows me to explore the tensions that compelled people to create and change customs. My ultimate aim is to link ordinary stories and manners with the constellation of ethical and political principles that governed the way Africans and others lived their lives (cf. Robert Ross's recent work). Finally, I want to explore how individuals struggled with status in their own communities, quite apart from reacting to the concerns of race and the prevailing politics of the colony.
Etiquette was fundamental to settlers' racial consciousness. And although it appears static-as late as the 1960s some whites expressed a reluctance to shake hands with blacks-I argue that white practices of racial etiquette in Colonial Zimbabwe were highly dynamic. This was because colonial categories such as prestige and etiquette complemented other significant categories such as class and gender. Challenging one idea upset the seeming naturalness of all categories. My preliminary work demonstrates this mingling of categories. In a recent article of a 1938 cattle culling controversy, I examine the intersection of ideas about animal control, colonial righteousness and justice with the prevailing norms of racial etiquette in the late 1930s (Journal of African History 2, 2002). In this case a breach of manners among settlers led to a breakdown in colonial creative power and a momentary crisis for the colonial state, which lead to a rethinking of animal control and problems of settler unity.
Respectability was central to black middle class consciousness, and so they also took seriously the significance of racial etiquette. To take but one example, J. Z. Gumede remembered his visit to the 1953 Rhodes Centenary Exhibition as a display of a new racial etiquette: "We mixed freely not only on important occasions, but also in streets, shops and everywhere. The number of Europeans who stopped for a man of colour and said 'pass on', 'sorry', 'never mind' had to be seen to be believed. Trivialities, perhaps, but these are the very substance that cements empires against the day of reckoning." My aim is to investigate not only white and black middle class norms, which naturally have been the focus of etiquette studies, but also the manners of other classes.
Following Robert Ross's recent conceptual history of manners at the Cape, my approach is topical but focused on moments of ritual significance and the socialization process. Thus far I have researched the meaning of various public rituals such as Royal visits, the Rhodes Centenary Exhibition in 1953, and the colony's Jubilee celebrations. My other sources thus far include files from the NAZ, memoirs, colonial films, women's magazines, Boy Scout papers, government reports, newspapers and photographs.
I would appreciate any and all comments. Shutt@Hendrix.edu
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Wendy Willems: (Un)Covering the land issue? Zimbabwean & British Media Reportage, News Production Practices & the role in poloicymaking wendywillems@soas.ac.uk
School of Oriental and African Studies, Department of Anthropology and Sociology (Media Studies Programme)
Since the start of large-scale invasions of commercial farms in early 2000, the land issue and the media have become increasingly intertwined in various ways. On the one hand, the government has used the state-funded media in order to gain support for its main policy issue: the land question. At the same time, the private press in Zimbabwe has actively commented upon the government's fast track land reform programme and its representations in media such as radio and television. Foreign media, on the other hand, have also been criticised, e.g. for their obsession with the land question and ignorance of other aspects of the crisis in Zimbabwe. So, apart from the land question itself, representations of the issue became heavily contested.
In my ongoing PhD research, I will provide a textual analysis of the representation of the land question in two British and two Zimbabwean newspapers. The focus of my research will be media coverage after January 2000 but in order to contextualise my study and to relate coverage to previous periods, I will include two case studies: media coverage on the land issue during the time of the Lancaster House Conference in 1979; and the serious drought and introduction of new land legislation in 1991/92.
Furthermore, I will consider how news stories were constructed by both local journalists and foreign correspondents in Zimbabwe. Drawing upon interviews with media producers, my research aims to examine which institutional routines and professional ideologies have informed news making and how the current social, political and economic climate in Zimbabwe has influenced their production practices.
Finally, I am interested in the role of the media in shaping national and international policy attitudes. A highly debated issue within the field of media studies is the question of media power and influence: do the media set the agenda of local and British foreign policy towards the land question? Or do official and/or non-officials sources determine local and international media reportage on land? In my research, I will investigate how journalists, policymakers, government officials and civil society representatives have interacted and how they imagine their own roles.
Possible suggestions, ideas or critical notes on my research are most welcome.
Return to index"Faith, Gender & Nation: the Brethren in Christ Church in Matabeleland,
colonial Zimbabwe, 1898-1978."The dissertation, conducted under the Department of History at Columbia University in New York, looks at this church, brought to Rhodesia in 1898 by North American missionaries, from the perspective of the African membership, drawing from archival material in Zimbabwe and the United States, but especially from extensive oral history interviews conducted by this researcher between 1997 and 2002 with people representing three generations of Africans and missionaries.
The oral testimonies permit me, in the first half of the dissertation, to call into question the familiar assertion that African girls who "escaped" arranged marriages by running to mission stations, found they were simply exchanging indigenous for European-imperialist patriarchies. My dissertation shows that while it is true that both Ndebele and colonial mission societies were male-dominated, there also existed a world of female-dominated spiritual and sexual mentoring within the mission school communities, in forms much like those that existed before colonial rule and the arrival of missionaries.
The second half of the dissertation re-examines the dynamic between mission churches and African nationalism, revealing a richly textured picture of African men and women balancing gender roles, spiritual needs, and the demands of an increasingly violent liberation struggle. A key aspect making this case compelling is the core Brethren in Christ teaching that members ought to stay separate from worldly affairs, especially politics. Over time, this gave rise to a complex of ironies, since the mission church was enabled and heavily subsidized by the Rhodesian state. How did African members of such a church legitimately express nationalist sentiments, if any? The church's expansion, after World War II, into the hostile territory of Matabeleland North when significant numbers of its members were forcibly removed from their base in the South is a story of African-initiated evangelism and church planting largely led by women. When treating the years of the liberation war, historical writing has tended to depict African peasants during the liberation war facing stark, either-or choices, such as being either a "sell-out" (supporter of the Smith regime) or a "comrade" (supporter of the guerilla-led liberation struggle.) Yet it seems that, at least for these BIC Africans, allegiances were far more complicated and gendered than this, as evidenced by testimonies from hymn-singing guerillas or female pastors who continued to feed both the guerillas and the Rhodesian soldiers.Contact Information:
Ms. Wendy Urban-Mead, 292 Mills Cross Road, Staatsburg NY 12580 USA
Department of History, Columbia University, 611 Fayerweather Hall, Mail Code 2527
1180 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027 USA
wumrum@earthlink.net
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Hristina Dimitrova Vassileva
hdv@humanrights.dkDynamics of Human Rights in Times of Crisis
The scope of research is within the area of "Human Rights and Development".
The proposed PhD project includes a case study on Zimbabwe with the tentative title of the PhD research" Dynamics of Human Rights in Times of Crisis".
The points of interest are:
1) prioritization/de-prioritization of the different categories of human rights not only in the context of the African/Third World approach to the implementation of political and economic and social rights but also in the specific context of the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe, and in particular the HIV/AIDS and poverty/food crisis;
2) marginalization of particular groups and domestic re-distributive policies in the context of scarce resources;
3) the relationship of donor countries and Third World countries, and the differentiation between humanitarian aid (that is unconditional) and development aid (that is made conditional on human rights record and democratization progress). Within the last category, the sub-questions involve
i) the external political pressures and internal response, especially by the current political regime in Zimbabwe;
ii) the effect of stopping development aid and the line of responsibility between the international community and the local government for the population's survival and well-being,
iii) the work of foreign aid agencies in Zimbabwe, such as USAID and differences in donor policies (involvement/continuation vs. suspension/isolation).
In theoretical aspect, the research will use as point of departure the cultural relativism, by testing the theory with the data from the empirical case study.MA in International Relations (Sofia Univerisity, Bulgaria),
MA in Law (Sofia Univerisity,Bulgaria),
Master of European Politics (Lund University, Sweden),
PhD student at Graduate School of International Development Studies at Roskilde University and the Danish Centre for Human Rights
Contact: hdv@humanrights.dk
Danish Centre for Human Rights
8 H Wilders Plads
1403 Copenhagen K
Denmark
tel: +45 22 38 61 86
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SHORTER NOTICES & UPDATES
Rayah Feldman: rayah@gn.apc.org
My project in Zimbabwe is now completed and I am not currently continuing further work there. ICW's report "Positive Women: Voices and Choices - Zimbabwe Report" was published last year and can be obtained from ICW, 2c Leroy House, 436 Essex Road, London N1 3QP, Tel: 0207 704 0606, Fax 0207 704 8070, or by emailing <info@icw.org>. It was published by SAFAIDS in Harare and should also be available from there, 17, Beveridge Road, P O Box A509, Avondale, Harare, Tel: (263 4) 336 193/4; 307 898, Fax 336 195, email
<info@safaids.org.zw>. Copies can also be obtained from me at the address below or via this email.Dr.Rayah Feldman
13, Isabella Road
London E9 6DX
Tel: 020 8985 3235 Return to index
Dr. Steve Kibble: steve@ciir.org
Africa/ Yemen Advocacy Officer
Catholic Institute for International RelationsCIIR will continue both its advocacy and skillshare work in and on Zimbabwe. In terms of advocacy we work on issues of human rights, the situation facing farmworkers and the need for equitable land reform in Zimbabwe and throughout southern Africa. We have with Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe recently published a lobbying document on the situation facing farmworkers which contains recommendations for different groups - the Zimbabwean government, NGOs and churches. The document is available from Steve Kibble at CIIR - steve@ciir.org .
We also write articles for the press in both continents and address meetings on Zimbabwe and other southern African countries and topics. For further information please see our website www.ciir.org or email Steve Kibble as above.
Tel: 020 7288 8629 (Direct)
Tel: 020 7288 8600 (Switchboard)
mobile: 07742 677 654
Fax: 020 7359 0017
Web: www.ciir.org Return to index
Akiko Mizoguchi: akikomz@be.to
Tokyo Woman's Christian University
I read a paper, 'Monkey Unbound?: The Use of Journey to the West in Dambudzo Marechera's Short Stories and Maxine Hong Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book', on Marechera's use of Chinese literature in House of Hunger, at the Boston University Dept of African American Studies 2002 Conference, Blacks and Asians: Encounters Through Time and Space. I am revising the manuscript, hoping it will be published somewhere.
My essay on my trip to Zimbabwe 10 years ago (VERY OUTDATED!) will be published in the next issue of Journal of African Travel Writing .
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Dr. Tony Simoes da Silva: A.J.SimoesdaSilva@exeter.ac.ukSchool of English, University of Exeter.
Exeter, EX4 4QH
44 01392 264303I am working on southern African autobiographies, and as such very interested in writing coming out of Zimbabwe. Research areas are postcolonial with an African, Australian and Caribbean foci, as well as contemporary British culture, Literary Theory.
Return to indexDr. Deborah Potts: debby.potts@kcl.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in Geography, King's College, London.The longitudinal research on migrants to Harare described in last year's BZS Directory continued with another round of surveys in 2001 in collaboration with Chris Mutambirwa of the Geog Dept of UZ.
The main focus of these surveys was on qualitative evaluation by recent migrants of their living standards in town, in the context of urban economic collapse and extraordinary price increases, compared with those experienced in their place of origin - usually a rural area but not necessarily.
The usual data on incomes, rents, tenure, migration motivations and future intentions were also collected for comparative purposes.These data are currently being analysed.
Environment, Politics and Development Research Group.
Cities, Culture and Society Research Group.
Room 3CA, Chesham Building, Department of Geography,
King's College London, Strand Campus, London, WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom.Tel. 44 020 7848 1572 or 44 0207848 2612 (administrator)
Fax. 44 020 7848 2287
www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/schools/hums/geog/top.html
Return to indexDiana Jeater: Diana.Jeater@uwe.ac.uk
Principal Lecturer in African History
Chair, Britain Zimbabwe SocietyI am now concentrating on writing up my monograph, Law, Language & Science: The invention of the 'native mind' in Southern Rhodesia. due for delivery to the publisher in December 2004. (see details in last year's BZS Research Directory)
I intend to spend September 2005-06 producing a text-book for Palgrave entitled African History: A thematic approach.
I am also working intermittently on a project about the Fingo people in south-western Zimbabwe, in collaboration with a community film and video company in Harare. This project needs funding, which needs time that I currently don't have! Anyone interested in (funding this?) this project, please get in touch.
Head of the School of History, UWE, St Matthias Campus, BRISTOL, BS16 2JP
+ 44 (0)117 344 4384 (office); + 44 (0)117 344 4416 (secretary).
Return to indexJane L. Parpart, Dalhousie University (History, International Development Studies): parpart@dal.ca
Miriam Grant, University of Calgary (Geography): grant@acs.ucalgary.ca
Constructing Difference and Managing Development: material and discursive visions of "progress" and "modernity/ies" among African elites in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, 1953-1980
This study was also reported in last year's BZS Directory, and is ongoing:
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.
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