Single women, land and livelihood vulnerability in a communal area in Zimbabwe

Single women, land and livelihood vulnerability in a communal area in Zimbabwe
Author: Gaynor Gamuchirai Makura-Paradza
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2023-09-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9086867006

There has been limited research on single women in customary tenure areas. Single women's experiences have been marginalized in research that focuses on notions of property, male headed domestic units and relies on normative research methods to investigate resource access in the communal farming areas of Zimbabwe. This work focuses on the hearth-hold as a domestic unit and uses innovative research methods to investigate how women outside the marriage institution negotiate access to land, livelihood resources and make decisions to cope with livelihood vulnerability in customary tenure areas. The research illustrates through a focus on pathways and rural-urban connections how single women make decisions to secure livelihoods under fast changing conditions. The findings that patriarchy is only one but not the only institution governing land access in customary tenure areas and that women have more room to negotiate land access in communal areas especially through entitlements, family obligations and exploitation of multi-layered tenure systems are some of the publication's contribution to knowledge on single women, customary land tenure and livelihood vulnerability.

Single Women, Land and Livelihood Vulnerability in an Communal Area in Zimbabwe

Single Women, Land and Livelihood Vulnerability in an Communal Area in Zimbabwe
Author: Gaynor Gamuchirai Makura-Paradza
Publisher:
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2010
Genre: Land tenure
ISBN: 9789085854746

"This work focuses on the hearth-hold as a domestic unit and uses innovation research methods to investigate how women outside the marriage institution negotiate access to land, livelihood resources and make decisions to cope with livelihood vulnerability in customary tenure areas"--Page 4 of cover.

Women, Mobility and Rural Livelihoods in Zimbabwe

Women, Mobility and Rural Livelihoods in Zimbabwe
Author: Patience Mutopo
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2014-09-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 900428155X

This book is based on iterative multi-sited ethnography at Merrivale farm, Tavaka village, and various sites in South Africa. The author reveals how the dynamics generated by fast-track potentially offer new development opportunities – specifically for women. The findings challenge existing expert notions and opinions about women’s rural land use, livelihoods, and rural development. The book examines how negotiations and bargaining by women with family, state, and traditional actors have proved useful in accessing land in Mwenezi district, Zimbabwe. The hidden, complex, and innovative ways adopted by women to access land and shape livelihoods based on transitory mobility are examined. The role of collective action, conflicts, conflict resolution, and women’s agency in overcoming the challenges associated with trading in South Africa are examined within the ambit of the sustainable livelihoods framework, a gendered approach to land reform and social networks analysis.

Digital Activism in the Social Media Era

Digital Activism in the Social Media Era
Author: Bruce Mutsvairo
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2016-12-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319409492

This book probes the vitality, potentiality and ability of new communication and technological changes to drive online-based civil action across Africa. In a continent booming with mobile innovation and a plethora of social networking sites, the Internet is considered a powerful platform used by pro-democracy activists to negotiate and sometimes push for reform-based political and social changes in Africa. The book discusses and theorizes digital activism within social and geo-political realms, analysing cases such as the #FeesMustFall and #BringBackOurGirls campaigns in South Africa and Nigeria respectively to question the extent to which they have changed the dynamics of digital activism in sub-Saharan Africa. Comparative case study reflections in eight African countries identify and critique digital concepts questioning what impact they have had on the civil society. Cases also explore the African LGBT community as a social movement while discussing opportunities and challenges faced by online activists fighting for LGBT equality. Finally, gender-based activists using digital tools to gain attention and facilitate social changes are also appraised.

Outcomes of post-2000 Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe

Outcomes of post-2000 Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe
Author: Lionel Cliffe
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2014-06-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1317981251

The struggle over land has been the central issue in Zimbabwe ever since white settlers began to carve out large farms over a century ago. Their monopolisation of the better-watered half of the land was the focus of the African war of liberation war, and was partially modified following Independence in 1980. A dramatic further episode in this history was launched at the start of the last decade with the occupation of many farms by groups of African veterans of the liberation struggle and their supporters, which was then institutionalised by legislation to take over most of the large commercial farms for sub-division. Sustained fieldwork over the intervening years, by teams of scholars and experts, and by individual researchers is now generating an array of evidence-based findings of the outcomes: how land was acquired and disposed of; how it has been used; how far new farmers have carved out new livelihoods and viable new communities; the major political and economic problems they and other stakeholders such as former farm-workers, commercial farmers, and the overall rural society now face. This book will be an essential starting place for analysts, policy-makers, historians and activists seeking to understand what has happened and to spotlight the key issues for the next decade. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe

Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe
Author: Sam Moyo
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 2869785720

The Fast Track Land Reform Programme implemented during the 2000s in Zimbabwe represents the only instance of radical redistributive land reforms since the end of the Cold War. It reversed the racially-skewed agrarian structure and discriminatory land tenures inherited from colonial rule. The land reform also radicalised the state towards a nationalist, introverted accumulation strategy, against a broad array of unilateral Western sanctions. Indeed, Zimbabwes land reform, in its social and political dynamics, must be compared to the leading land reforms of the twentieth century, which include those of Mexico, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Cuba and Mozambique. The fact that the Zimbabwe case has not been recognised as vanguard nationalism has much to do with the intellectual structural adjustment which has accompanied neoliberalism and a hostile media campaign. This has entailed dubious theories of neopatrimonialism, which reduce African politics and the state to endemic corruption, patronage, and tribalism while overstating the virtues of neoliberal good governance. Under this racist repertoire, it has been impossible to see class politics, mass mobilisation and resistance, let alone believe that something progressive can occur in Africa. This book comes to a conclusion that the Zimbabwe land reform represents a new form of resistance with distinct and innovative characteristics when compared to other cases of radicalisation, reform and resistance. The process of reform and resistance has entailed the deliberate creation of a tri-modal agrarian structure to accommodate and balance the interests of various domestic classes, the progressive restructuring of labour relations and agrarian markets, the continuing pressures for radical reforms (through the indigenisation of mining and other sectors), and the rise of extensive, albeit relatively weak, producer cooperative structures. The book also highlights some of the resonances between the Zimbabwean land struggles and those on the continent, as well as in the South in general, arguing that there are some convergences and divergences worthy of intellectual attention. The book thus calls for greater endogenous empirical research which overcomes the pre-occupation with failed interpretations of the nature of the state and agency in Africa.

Fast Track Land Occupations in Zimbabwe

Fast Track Land Occupations in Zimbabwe
Author: Kirk Helliker
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2021-01-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030663485

This book offers the first detailed scholarly examination of the nation-wide land occupations which spread across the Zimbabwean countryside from the year 2000, and led to the state’s fast track land reform programme. In an innovative way, it highlights the decentralized character of the occupations by recognizing significant spatial variation around a number of key themes, including historical memory, modes of mobilization and gender. A case study of the land occupations in Mashonaland Central Province, based on original research, adds empirical weight to the argument. In further identifying and understanding the specificities and complexities of the land occupations, the book also frames them by way of a nuanced comparative-historical analysis of the three zvimurenga. It thus examines the land occupations (referred to, likely controversially, as the ‘third chimurenga’) with reference to the original anti-colonial revolt from the 1890s (the first chimurenga) and the war of liberation in the 1970s (the second chimurenga). Further, the book engages critically with the ruling party’s chimurenga narrative and the hegemonic understanding of the land occupations within Zimbabwean studies. This book is a crucial read for all scholars and students of post-2000 land and politics in Zimbabwe, but also for those more broadly interested in historical-comparative analyses of land struggles in Zimbabwe and beyond.

State, Land and Democracy in Southern Africa

State, Land and Democracy in Southern Africa
Author: Arrigo Pallotti
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317050320

Each country in southern Africa has a unique history but in all of them socio-economic inequalities and high poverty levels weaken the governments’ legitimacy and represent a challenge to models of economic development. One key issue appears to be the solution of the land question. This vital concern affects both citizenship and democracy in the political systems of the region, yet no government has shown the capacity or commitment to solve it. In this volume leading European, American and African scholars explore in detail the relationship between state, land and democracy. They examine the historical background of asset allocation and its impact on questions of nationality, the definition of citizenship, human rights and the current political and economic processes in southern Africa.

Beyond the Crises: Zimbabwes Prospects for Transformation

Beyond the Crises: Zimbabwes Prospects for Transformation
Author: Tendai Murisa
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2015-12-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1779222831

Over the past years, few African countries have been the focus of discussions and analyses generating a vast array of literature as much as Zimbabwe. The socioeconomic and political crises since the turn of the century have deeply transformed the country from the ideals of a vibrant freshly independent nation just two decades earlier. These transformations have necessitated the call for the restructuring of Zimbabwean society, polity, and economy. But this literature remains exclusively within the realm of academic thinking and theorising, with no concerted effort to move beyond this by explicitly drawing out the policy implications. Beyond the Crises: Zimbabwes Prospects for Transformation is a welcome addition to the academic and policy literature with a much broader and all-embracing focus in terms of policy interventions. By focusing on different aspects of social and economic justice, Murisa and Chikweche go beyond initiating a broad discussion on these two key pillars of human development with a view to suggesting possible future directions of practical solutions and policy development for the attainment of inclusive social and economic justice for Zimbabweans.