Forbidden But Not Suppressed: a ‘Vernacular’ Land Market in Svosve Communal Lands, Zimbabwe

Abstract

This article examines the status of land tenure in Zimbabwe following the ‘Fast Track’ land reforms of 2000–3. It finds that post-reform land tenure remains strongly dualist, with land sales and rental prohibited on the land (about two thirds of the total) classified as ‘A1’ resettlement or ‘communal areas’, while tradeable leases apply to much of the remainder, classified as ‘commercial land’. The article draws on fieldwork in Svosve Communal Area and on previous studies on land transactions in Zimbabwe to argue that land sales and rental transactions are an enduring feature of land use in Zimbabwe's ‘communal areas’. Moreover, the article argues that, despite government prohibition, there is evidence that such transactions are being fuelled by increasing demand for land arising from the collapse in the non-farm economy in Zimbabwe. The article argues that while the logic of informal (or ‘vernacular’) land sales and rental is widely recognized by land users in communal and resettlement areas, government prohibition, in favour of asserting land allocation rights of customary authorities, is driven by considerations of political control of the rural vote.