Highveld Research Articles

Women and Work in Zimbabwe, C.1800–2000

Women and Work in Zimbabwe, C.1800–2000 Pilossof Rory (bio) ABSTRACT This paper looks at the working lives of women in Zimbabwe and how these have shifted and changed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To do so, official labor records, census and labor surveys are augmented with qualitative data about the labor relations women performed outside of the formal economy. Key here will be exploring female contributions to the informal labor economy, subsistence or peasant agriculture, and their reproductive and household labor. In order to fully assess women's participation in the economy of the region, attention will also be paid to the migrant labor system in southern Africa and how women have responded to this, participated in it, and pursued their own agency within this system. The paper adopts wider conceptual approaches, including a broader definition of labor and using the methodology and the taxonomy of labor relations developed at the International Institute of Social History for the study of shifts and continuities in labor and labor relations across time and space at a global scale. The paper makes the argument that social structure and gender relations present in African societies during the late 1800s informed responses to colonialism, not necessarily the other way around. These relations continued to influenced how women interacted with the wage labor economy and informal economy after independence and into the twenty-first century. KEYWORDS gender, women, labor, trade, Southern Africa [End Page 93] Introduction Labor studies in Zimbabwe have a rich and well-developed historiography. The contested and uneven processes of colonization, urbanization and land accumulation have meant that labor, and how labor has interacted with these processes, has been a central focus for a number of scholars and researchers, such as Giovanni Arrighi, Ian Phimister, Charles van Onselen, and Brian Raftopoulos.1 Part of the reason for the wealth of critical literature, particularly from 1890 to the present, is the availability of archival sources with which to undertake such research: censuses, labor surveys and labor reports. However, as this paper illustrates, these archival sources fundamentally misrepresent and undercount the working lives of women in Zimbabwe. To get a more comprehensive picture of the work women did necessitates exploring female contributions to the informal labor economy, subsistence or peasant agriculture, and their reproductive and household labor. Furthermore, to fully assess women's participation in the economy of the region, attention will also be paid to the migrant labor system in southern Africa and how women have responded to this, participated in it, and pursued their own agency within this system. The paper adopts wider conceptual approaches, including a broader definition of labor and using the methodology and the taxonomy of labor relations developed at the International Institute of Social History for the study of shifts in labor and labor relations across time and space at a global scale. Historical Background Pre-1890 Before the arrival of European settlers, two main population groups, the Shona and Ndebele, dominated the area now known as Zimbabwe. The "Shona" lived across Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The term Shona represents a collection of people, made up of a number of groups (Korekore, Zezuru, Karanga, Kalanga, Manyika, Ndau, and Rozvi), who "speak different, but mutually intelligible, dialects."2 They dominated the middle and high veld areas of Zimbabwe (from northwest to southeast of the country). The Shona were mainly agriculturalists, growing a wide variety of crops, which varied from region to region and on weather conditions. Millet and sorghum were widely grown, and later maize. Livestock were also kept and included cattle, goats, sheep, dogs and fowl. David Beach, by focusing on a small village, Goredema, part of the Chivero group of people, gives us some insight into the functioning of the Shona villages. In the late nineteenth century, Goredema village consisted [End Page 94] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Map of Zimbabwe of more than 100 people, settled in a sprawling settlement. It consisted of 16 married men, 7 polygamists (with 2 wives each) and 14 bachelors (42 percent bachelors, 34 percent polygamists, 24 percent monogamists for whole male population). Shona society had bride price and bride service marriage systems. As Beach explained...

PREHARVEST ABIOTIC CONDITIONS ON THE ACCUMULATION OF BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS AND ANTIOXIDANT CAPACITIES OF SWEET BELL PEPPER (Capsicum annum L) CULTIVARS IN THE LOW AND HIGH VELD REGIONS OF ZIMBABWE

Abiotic factors coupled with varietal differences have a special bearing on the synthesis of bioactive compounds and enhancement of antioxidant capacities of sweet bell pepper. The aim of the present study was to characterize the content of bioactive compounds (lycopene, vitamin C, β-carotenes, total phenols, and the antioxidant activity of sweet bell pepper (Capsicum annum L) grown under different Agro climatic regions with different environmental conditions, the Eastern Highlands (High veld region) and the Save Valley (low veld region). The results from the study showed statistical differences (p ≤ 0.05) between the different growing locations with regard to the bioactive compounds which were identified and quantified. Capsicum annum var. Lafayette presented the highest concentration of vitamin C content, lycopene content and total phenols as well as the greatest antioxidant activity in the high veld region. In addition, the results indicated that low temperatures favour in vivo biosynthesis of bioactive compounds and enhances antioxidant capacities of sweet bell pepper.

"Hungry for interpretation" : Woyzeck on the Highveld and the polyphony of performance

"Hungry for interpretation" : Woyzeck on the Highveld and the polyphony of performance

CO2 reactivity of briquettes derived from discard inertinite-rich Highveld coal using lignosulphonate and resin as binders

CO2 reactivity of briquettes derived from discard inertinite-rich Highveld coal using lignosulphonate and resin as binders

Woyzeck a prérin

Jelen tanulmány a The Handspring Puppet Company Woyzeck on the Highveld című bábelőadását értelmezi a színházi interkulturalitás szempontjából. A különböző befogadói attitűdök, kiemelve az előadás magyar, 2011-es bemutatóját összevethetők a klasszikus dráma befogadásának történetiségével.

David McDermott Hughes. Whiteness in Zimbabwe: Race, Landscape, and the Problem of Belonging. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. xx + 204 pp. Photographs. Bibliography. Index. $31.00. Paper.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY David McDermott Hughes. Whiteness in Zimbabwe: Race, Landscape, and the Problem of Belonging. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. xx + 204 pp. Photographs. Bibliography. Index. $31.00. Paper. In Whiteness in Zimbabwe, David McDermott Hughes offers a fascinating analysis of how white farmers have constructed and understood their role in the country before, during, and following the agrarian reforms currendy aimed at them. The work's strengths - its exposition of connections between this group's environmental conservation and its racial identity, as well as its extensive reference to literature and photography - make this ethnographic study required reading for anyone interested in the process of colonization. Hughes refers to J. M. Coetzee' White Writing (Yale University Press, 1988), obviously a major influence, in his allusion to the dream topographies of the country that whites have created through a combination of imagination and engineering. To feel at home, Euro-Africans, these children of the glaciers accustomed to Wordsworthian landscapes, transformed the African vistas: Zimbabwe had no lakes, so they built them. In his second and third chapters, Hughes describes the massive project that spawned the Kariba Dam and its lake. With an incisive exegesis of scientific and fictional works featuring the lake, he shows how this artificial body of water has become the myth of the African wilderness. In chapter 4 he describes how, after independence, investing in major farm projects like irrigation was also an investment in identity, giving the farmers a legitimate role in the new country while they continued their drive to transform its space. In analyzing the geography of farms and wilderness, Hughes might have referred to Raymond Williams's masterful account (in The Country and The City, 1973) of the ways in which large landowners in eighteenth-century England invented natural spaces and lost themselves in their contemplation, making an abstraction of the work and the lives of farmworkers. In its South Rhodesian version, this became what Hughes calls the strategy of social escape (58), which leads him to define white racism as a process of Other disregarding (xviii). In chapter 5 Hughes suggests that white farmers, in view of the current agrarian reforms that threaten their imagined realm, have reinvented their role in the high veld in order to preserve their farms. In his study of the Virginia district, he identifies three strategies - conservation, evangelizing, and agricultural development - that nonetheless failed. Those who were still on their farms in 2003 were playing the game (xiv, 101) by collaborating with the occupants. …

Historical and recent land-use impacts on the vegetation of Bathurst, a municipal commonage in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

We assessed past and present vegetation patterns in relation to land use on a municipal commonage in South Africa. We asked specifically whether the reassignment of the commonage for the use of historically disadvantaged town residents after 1994 has impacted negatively on the vegetation of the commonage. Analysis of land cover change using aerial photography time series revealed that the most significant human impacts on the Bathurst commonage occurred prior to 1942 due to heavy and uncontrolled communal land use. Vegetation change since then has been characterised by a recovery of thicket vegetation and an encroachment of woody species into grassland. Additional field sampling of the species composition and age class distributions of trees and shrubs in thicket and broken thicket vegetation showed these units to be of high veld condition status. Thornveld and old lands have both been encroached upon by woody species, particularly by Acacia karroo, and possessed the lowest veld condition scores. There is little evidence, however, that recent land-use activities have impacted negatively on commonage vegetation. We discuss these results in terms of the vegetation's potential to provide for the diverse needs of commonage users, and the implications for commonage management and policy.

Empyema and parapneumonic effusions in children : an update : review

Introduction. Atopy in Gauteng and the Free State has been widely studied. However, all these studies reflect the allergy status of individuals living in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein. No study of this nature has been conducted in Pretoria. Methodology Standard allergen extracts (Alk Abello) with negative and positive control were used for testing. The allergen extracts used were: Bermuda grass, 5 grass mix, tree mix, corn culture Zea Mays (pollen), dog hair dander, cat hair dander, standardized mite Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus (HDM), Blatana sp (cockroach), horse, cow’s milk, whole grain, soybean, peanut mix, whole egg, fish mix and wheat. Reactions were measured according to wheal size at 10 minutes, and wheal 3mm greater than the negative control was regarded as a positive reaction for inhalants. The cut-points of Sporok were used for positive food reactions. Results. 50 asthmatic children were studied. Skin prick test (SPT) positivity was commonest to bermuda grass (24%) while grass mix was the next most common aeroallergen sensitivity. HDM sensitivity occurred in 10% of patients. Food allergens were uncommon but potato sensitivity was displayed in 14%. Conclusion. Grass sensitivity reflects the prevailing aero-allergen exposure in a typical highveld city. However it appears that HDM sensitivity is uncommon suggesting that the climate in this area is significantly adverse to mite growth. This may be the first Highveld town where micro-climate does not favour mite survival. Mite studies are required from Pretoria. All children with potato sensitivity had atopic eczema. This requires investigation.

After Africa: Finding Home Again: How I became interested in rangeland management

A llan Savory changed my life. But I didn't realize that until I stepped onto the tarmac of the San Francisco International Airport. As I walked to a 19-minute express flight to Sacramento after 2 days of travel from Johannesburg, South Africa, thoughts of the 2 months I spent in Africa played through my mind like an old film. I couldn't believe it was over. I'd spent a year and a half researching, saving, and planning to get myself to Africa for a Holistic Management internship. All this was because of a soft-spoken man who drank hot tea with lunch, who said graws, not and who over the course of an afternoon interview, planted the idea of healthy, sustainable land in my mind. As the heavy glass door pushed open and I filed out behind other travelers in a neat line to the little plane, I inhaled a deep breath of ocean air. California, at last. Home. But home had changed, too. After the open high veld (rangeland) that borders the Kalahari and the abundant bush veld (filled with impala, kudu, warthogs, mambas, and baboons) that I had walked through just days before, my Sierra Nevada mountain valley home appeared small and a little less alive. The permanent fences crisscrossing the valley stood out like weathered statues against the weak green of the early spring grass. The land looked totally occupied. Before Africa, I saw a picturesque landscape when I looked at the valley: tall grass, thick forests, abundant wildlife, and happy cows grazing the open meadows. But that was only a glance. When I got home I knew how to take a closer look. While studying Holistic Management in Author at age 5 w it a Author at age 5 with lamb.

Seedling recruitment ofColophospermum mopaneon the Highveld of Zimbabwe

Synopsis Factors controlling seedling recruitment of Colophospermum mopane (Kirk ex. Benth) Kirk ex. J. Leonard were investigated on the high veld of Zimbabwe. Seed germination and seedling survival and growth were monitored under canopy and outside canopy microhabitats for a period of3 years. Seed germination in both microhabitats exceeded 70%. Although there was no significant difference in seed germination between the two microhabitats, seedling survival was significantly lower under canopies than outside canopies. More than 75% of newly emerged seedling losses were attributed to water stress, which suggests that abiotic factors (mainly rainfall) may account for most of the fluctuation in recruitment in this species. Open areas with bare ground or sparse grass cover were favourable sites for seedling recruitment. Seedlings appear to be shade-intolerant and require increased light intensities and temperature for growth. Seedlings grew slowly probably because they initially allocated more biomass to root...

The failure of ethnic nationalism: land, power and the politics of clanship on the South African high veld 1860–1990

AbstractDuring the 1980s a great deal was written about the role of missionaries, anthropologists, colonial officials and intellectuals in the ‘invention’ of ethnic and tribal categories in Africa. Today few scholars would question the complicity of colonial agents in the construction of ethnic or tribal identities. Despite these interventions, however, there is a growing realisation that processes of ethnicity formation are contingent on other factors as well. This article explores this proposition by investigating the role of the sub-ethnic politics of clanship in the north-eastern Orange Free State of South Africa over the past century and its specific contribution to thefailureof ethnic nationalism in the region. It concludes that, given the abuse of ethnicity by the South African state, there is an enormous temptation to over-determine the role of the state in ethnic formation in South Africa and to underplay the internal dynamics of ethnicity building.

Oral Evidence in a Pseudo-Ethnicity: The Fingo Debate

There is a disturbing trend emerging in South African history. Unquestioning acceptance of African oral tradition threatens to become a requirement of politically correct scholarship. The African voice knows all. Julian Cobbing has been sharply criticized for ignoring oral evidence in his revision of early nineteenth-century South African history. Cobbing claims that African migration and state formation in the 1820s was caused by the illegal activities of colonial slave raiders who covered up their operations by claiming that the Zulu kingdom under Shaka had laid waste to the interior of southern Africa. This cover story was incorporated into South African history as the mfecane (or crushing) and served to justify white supremacy by portraying blacks as inherently violent. Carolyn Hamilton attacks Cobbing for ignoring the African voice which allegedly supports the orthodox mfecane by placing Shaka at the center of events. In response, Cobbing claims that the largest record of Zulu oral evidence was distorted by James Stuart, the colonial official who collected it at the turn of the last century. Although Elizabeth Eldredge rejects the Zulucentric mfecane in favor of a broad compromise theory based on environmental and trade factors plus the activities of a few Griqua labor-raiders on the High veld, she accused Cobbing of developing a Eurocentric hypothesis which robs Africans of initiative within their own history. More critically, Jeffrey Peires, whose work on the Xhosa is deeply rooted in the conventional mfecane, describes Cobbing as “a reactionary wolf dressed up in the clothing of a progressive sheep” and implies that his ideas are nothing short of racist.

The development of resistance to certain organophosphorus and carbamate ixodicides by the blue tick, Boophilus decoloratus (Koch) (Acarina, Ixodidae), in Rhodesia

AbstractEight strains of Boophilus decoloratus (Koch) are described from farms in the High veld area of Rhodesia. All eight strains showed resistance to a number of organophosphorus ixodicides and four showed additional resistance to the carbamate, carbaryl. This is the first recorded resistance to these two groups of ixodicides in Rhodesia.Biochemical studies on the Alicedale West Farm strain indicated a level of resistance between that of the Berlin strain of B. decoloratus and the Biarra strain of B. microplus (Can.).

Local Adaptation and the Transformation of an Imperial Concession in North-Eastern Botswana

Opening ParagraphThe main subject of this paper is the way in which patterns of settlement and modes of working and holding land are transformed and adapted to diverse political and economic relations. The changes discussed occurred in adjustment, under British Imperial rule, between a large-scale, commercial landlord—initially a mining and trading company—and local rulers and residents in the area of the landlord's monopoly in north-eastern Botswana. Ecological conditions in the middle and high veld of Botswana are of crucial importance for the discussion, since these posed various risks and costs for the landlord, the local rulers, and the residents. I examine primarily a sequence of decisions and the locally crucial constraints that prevailed and set a course for further choices. ‘Tribal ruler’ is the generic term which I use for such political offices as ‘paramount chief’, ‘chieftain’, and also the Protectorate Administration's grade of Sub-Chief. A paramount chief or, simply, chief, is a ruler of the highest rank, having a major territory, whose authority extends over a series of subordinates, including some chieftains. Chieftains, in turn, are petty rulers over lesser territories, and in the grades of the Administration, never higher than Sub-Chief, though they may be independent and not under a chief as an administrative superior.

A Reappraisal of the Natal Monocline

Abstract The Natal monocline is a Jurassic coastal flexure by which Karroo beds, disposed sub-horizontally throughout most of the province, are caused to bend down eastwards to below sea-level thereby creating the original coastline of Natal. Early and late Tertiary cyclic landsurfaces likewise rise inland from the coast to the monoclinal axis (over 2,000 feet halfway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg) and were thought thence to flatten out westwards in the same way as do the Karroo formations. The series of topographic steps so marked in cross-section through Natal were thus deemed to be a set of cyclic landsurface. successively older from east to west. Upon re-examination, however, the early and late Tertiary cyclic land surfaces have been found not to flatten westward of the Jurassic monoclinal axis, but to continue to rise upon interfluves and residuals until the earlier surface stands near the Drakensberg at 6,000 feet. Beyond this it passes into the smooth crest/ines of the high veld with the late...

The Economic Geography of Swaziland

arose once again in the Press concerning the South African Protectorates, and the question of their transfer to the Union. I know little of conditions in either Basutoland or Bechuanaland, but I would like to bring forward some aspects of the geography of Swaziland, in the hope that they may perhaps serve to clarify the issue, at least where this Protectorate is concerned. The territory is about the size of Wales, and since I cannot hope to deal with all the problems, I propose to survey briefly the physical geography and historical development of Swaziland in relation to its economic development. It is this economic aspect which is likely to figure most prominently if and when terms for the transfer of the Protectorate to the Union are drawn up. Swaziland lies about 3 degrees south of the Tropic of Capricorn. On travelling through or flying over the country one is struck by the four welldefined topographical units into which the region falls. These physical divisions are determined mainly by geological structure, and themselves give rise to variations in the natural vegetation. Firstly, in the west the rim of much dissected mountainous country varying from 4000 to 6000 feet above sea-level is known as the high veld. Secondly, east of the high veld there is a perceptible drop into the deep valleys of the broken, rolling middle veld, which lies between 4000 and 1500 feet above the sea. This region is transitional to the third division, the low veld, which stretches eastward, a monotonous practically level plain across which thorn and bush dominate the landscape; this region is sometimes termed the bush veld. This last area varies from 800 to 2ooo feet above sea-level, while its continuity towards the sea is broken by the fourth division, the sheer face of the Lebombo rising abruptly from the bush-clad flats to 2500-3000 feet above the sea and forming a continuous range along the eastern boundary of Swaziland, breached only by the narrow but conspicuous gorges worn by the rivers, practically all of which drain eastward to Delagoa Bay. The rivers differ from most South African rivers in one respect which is of great importance-the main Swaziland rivers are perennial, and only those tributaries which rise within the bush veld dwindle to a string of muddy puddles during the dry season (Map i). From the geological map it appears that most of Swaziland is built of ancient granitic rocks (Map 2). Since very little is known concerning the geology I do not claim that this map is accurate. The mountainous region on the northwest border is a geological unit, and although the old rocks do not all lie within Swaziland, it is convenient to discuss the mountainland as a whole. From the map one can trace the relationship of the Barberton mountainland to the geology of the surrounding areas. It is a fragment of a series of sedimentary strata, presumably Pre-Cambrian in age, surrounded by the Old Granites, which cover immense areas in Southern Africa. The Pre-Cambrian beds reappear in the south of Swaziland. The Barberton mountainland is a most important physiographic element, for it has a marked influence on

The Radcliffe Observatory

WHEN in the Court of Chancery on July 2 Mr. Justice Bennett approved in principle the application of the Radcliffe Trustees for permission to remove their observatory from Oxford to a site on the high veld near Pretoria, this project, which has been the subject of discussion for several years, reached a further and important stage in its development. Although the judge has reserved his final sanction of the scheme until he is satisfied as to certain details of law and finance, it is not anticipated that these will give rise to any serious difficulty. The Radcliffe Trustees have from the outset wished for some system of close co-operation between the observatory in South Africa and the University of Oxford, and it is intended that the scheme submitted to the judge for his final sanction shall set forth plans for such co-operation in a more concrete form than has hitherto been possible. The present buildings of the Radcliffe Observatory have to be vacated in the summer of next year, when they will be taken over by the Oxford Medical School, but several years must clearly elapse before the new observatory with its 72-inch telescope will be able to commence operations on the site on the hills outside Pretoria most generously presented by the municipality of that city. When it does, it will find waiting for it a vast field of nebulae and faint stars yet unexplored with the spectroscope.