Abstract
In this article, we argue that research on land reform in the nation of Zimbabwe has overlooked possibilities of integrating geospatial methods into analyses and, at the same time, geographers have not adequately developed techniques for this application. Scholars have generally been captured within the debate focused on the success or failure of the Zimbabwean land reform program, and have neglected to analyze what has occurred where during the process of “fast-track land reform”. To date, no extensive national dataset of land ownership change, and the effect of this change on land use planning strategies, has been developed within the scientific community. As a result, most publications, even very detailed and thorough ones, have been based on regional case studies, broad estimates, or on outdated, cross-referenced statistics. To overcome the lack of spatio-temporal data, we propose an analytic framework to map Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform and its country-wide effects. It emphasizes the potential of geographic information systems and satellite remote sensing to provide an objective basis for future studies of the subject.
Highlights
Facing screaming injustices of land ownership as a result of Apartheid ideology and legislation, Southern African countries need to address demands of their landless poor and their black majorities, not least because liberation movements have fostered the access to land as one of the key aspects of independence and majority rule [1]
By presenting regional examples of remote sensing analysis in the region (Section 5) and the concept of participatory web-mapping (Section 6), we illustrate the potential of both methods for the research on Zimbabwe’s land reform before we present a research framework which would add spatial and objective input to the research on land reform (Section 7)
By using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data, the framework will assess the potential of these data to directly associate changes of crop production with change events of Zimbabwe’s land reform
Summary
Facing screaming injustices of land ownership as a result of Apartheid ideology and legislation, Southern African countries need to address demands of their landless poor and their black majorities, not least because liberation movements have fostered the access to land as one of the key aspects of independence and majority rule [1] The former settler colonies Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe have chosen different approaches to land reform in order to redress these imbalances [2]: While Namibia and South Africa adhere to moderate, market-based approaches to land redistribution, Zimbabwe’s land reform may be viewed as one of the most radical and comprehensive examples in recent world history [3]. The lack of comparable datasets acquired through objective quantitative methods is prevalent in the debate and “poverty of data lead to a poverty of understanding”
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