Land politics and settlers’ responses to land tenure under threat in emerging peri-urban spaces in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Drawing on the case study of Caledonia peri-urban settlement in Zimbabwe, this study presents the complex struggles and responses undertaken by settlers to assert their access, utilization, and rights to land for settlement. Employing qualitative methodologies including 50 in-depth interviews, participant observations, key informant interviews, and document analysis, the study reveals the lived experiences of vulnerable peri-urban settlers when faced with challenges posed by expanding local authorities and land acquisitions orchestrated by influential elites. Grounding our analysis in the theoretical framework of insurgent citizenship, this study challenges the notion of passive vulnerability among poor urbanites or settlers and illuminates their capacity to design protective mechanisms against threats to their land tenure. In the context of Caledonia, vulnerable settlers employed a range of strategies such as political rent-seeking, legal action, civil disobedience, and invoking religious symbolism to safeguard their land rights. Through these actions, we uncover a complex interplay between settlers’ agency and the emerging dynamics of authority, revealing not only the proliferation of competing claims but also the emergence of novel forms of power that shape access and control over coveted urban resources, particularly land. Given the complexities of land politics in Africa’s peri-urban, more studies will deepen understanding of dynamics shaping land access, privatisation, commodification and how such transformations are reconfiguring the political economy of peri-urban spaces.