Knowledge and Power in a Pastoral Landscape: Agrarian Struggles in Southern Matabeleland

Abstract

The Fast Track land Reform and Resettlement programme embarked on by the Zimbabwe state since 2000 has seen vast tracks of land expropriated from former commercial farmers. The justification being that there was an uneven distribution of land between the white settler community and the indigenous people. The village type resettlement and the small „commercial farms‟ models, have been adopted by the state and applied across the whole country without taking into consideration varying landscapes of provinces. The focus of these models is provision of arable land, a situation suitable for a better rainfall region such as Mashonaland and not necessarily the dry Matabeleland region A hegemonic tendency by the post colonial state in Zimbabwe has seen reduced livelihoods for Southern Matabeleland residents. Programmes and projects viewed as workable in Mashonaland have been brought „top-down‟ to the region despite resistance by most residents. State land re-distribution has over the years been biased towards acquisition of land for village settlements and crop farming, based on political and technocratic plans designed for Mashonaland provinces. Southern Matabeleland is a dry and live-stocking region, and therefore prefers land re-distribution programmes that give prominence to grazing land. Provincial plans that at least capture interests and needs of the people have been given marginal attention by the state and its apparatus, resulting in development projects that do not address livelihoods of the larger population of this region.In this article, I argue that state land re-distribution in southern Matabeleland has not addressed the felt needs of people in Matabeleland South because of the inappropriate hegemonic models of the state and its institutional apparatus. People pin their hopes on livestock for a livelihood and therefore, land re-distribution should address the issue of grazing more than village settlements and crop farming