Legacies of 'madiro'? Worker-peasantry, livelihood crisis and 'siziphile' land occupations in semi-arid north-western Zimbabwe

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Authors

Thebe, Vusilizwe

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Abstract

This paper examines acts of land 'self-provisioning' ('siziphile' land occupations) and 'radical land restitution' (of land previously annexed from people by the local authority for a pilot grazing project) by villagers in a communal area in Lupane District in north-western Zimbabwe. Situating these occurrences within the wider and historical context of 'madiro' (freedom farming and unauthorised development of settlements) and Matabeleland land politics and semi-proletarianisation, it stresses the livelihood history of households, the disappointments with local job opportunities and destruction of urban-based livelihoods in a crumbling economy, and the accompanying crisis of communal area agriculture. It concludes that these factors provided a real threat to semi-proletarianisation. By self-provisioning of the land the overriding concern of villagers was to maintain a certain level of livelihood survival, even if it was at odds with their livelihood strategies, while they sought opportunities to maintain semi-proletarianisation.

Description

Keywords

Land occupations, Madiro, Semi-proletarianisation, Siziphile, Zimbabwe

Sustainable Development Goals

Citation

Thebe, V. 2017, 'Legacies of 'madiro'? Worker-peasantry, livelihood crisis and 'siziphile' land occupations in semi-arid north-western Zimbabwe', Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 201-224.