Overview

This book investigates the range of conflicts over land and other natural resources in contemporary Zimbabwe, considering the different forms these conflicts take, and the ensuing outcomes. Zimbabwe is a country rich in natural resources, including land, wildlife, minerals, and water resources. These resources are integral to the formal and informal livelihoods of most Zimbabweans, as well as supporting many key industries. Wildlife, land, and water resources are also embedded in indigenous knowledge systems, religious beliefs, and rituals in many rural communities, forming an important part of people’s identity and sense of belonging. However, this book demonstrates the ways in which rural communities are being denied access to these resources and being displaced by extractive companies and the government. Their response is often to turn to violence to try to reclaim their lands. Drawing on original empirical research from different conflicts across Zimbabwe, the book also considers the issue in the context of problems such as climate change, human-wildlife conflicts, and politico-economic crises. This book will be useful to policy makers, students, conservationists, and academics across the fields of sociology, human geography, development, political science, and environment studies.

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9781032543987

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Reviews

This collection marks a new plateau in the study of rural Zimbabwe. A full generation after rapid, violent rapid land reform, the distinction between private and common lands has broken down. Mining and its resource curse have filled the economic void left by the collapse of tourism. This cohort of emergent, insightful authors traces startling - sometimes heart-rending - dynamics of conflict: between smallholders and a Chinese mining corporation, between foragers and the state, between large and small ethnicities, and between women and men. As always, Zimbabweans fight for their rights, however defined and contested. David Hughes, Rutgers University, USA. Author of the book Whiteness in Zimbabwe: Race, Landscape, and the Problem of Belonging. Natural resource conflicts are on the rise, made more intense by the effects of climate change. This is definitely the case in Zimbabwe. This important book looks at how conflicts play out around land, water, minerals and their intersections. Based on original research from every corner of the country, the case studies reveal how struggles over resources give rise to contestations around authority, with major implications for politics and governance. This must-read book will be of interest to researchers, policymakers and field practitioners and anyone interested in the politics of environmental change in Zimbabwe and beyond. Ian Scoones, Professor, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, United Kingdom This innovative interdisciplinary text focuses on natural resource-based conflicts in rural Zimbabwe where individuals face everyday challenges in obtaining land and water rights as well as access to fisheries and forests. Rural dwellers live in precarious situations due to a combination of unequal power dynamics and unjust laws that compromise their land tenure rights. They are prone to displacement without compensation due to mineral discoveries, dam constructions, and urban expansion. The book is essential reading for historians, sociologists, anthropologists, environmentalists, urban planners and rural development specialists. Terence M Mashingaidze, Department of History, Midlands State University, Zimbabwe There is need to rethink natural resource governance in the light of everyday conflicts that are multi- layered, within rural Zimbabwe. The structural forms of conflicts at micro, meso and macro levels, affect inclusive processes and equitable resource development. This comes at a time when different policy vectors are being proposed nationally to enhance the natural resource governance pillars in rural and urban Zimbabwe to enhance processes of resource efficiency. Professor Patience Mutopo, Ministry of Environment, Climate and Wildlife, Zimbabwe

Author Information

Joshua Matanzima is a researcher at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (Sustainable Minerals Institute), University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He holds a PhD in anthropology from La Trobe University, Australia. His research interests include natural resources conflicts between indigenous people, governments, and extractive companies; social aspects of mining and energy transitions; and social, environmental, and governance risks and impacts of large-scale infrastructure development and conservation projects. He has carried out extensive fieldwork on these topics in the Middle-Zambezi Valley. Patience Chadambuka is a researcher, lecturer and acting chairperson at the Department of Community Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Midlands State University, Zimbabwe. She holds a PhD in sociology from Rhodes University, South Africa. She researches and writes on land, livelihoods, ethnicity and gender. She has also been awarded international research grants on climate change and disability studies. Kirk Helliker is Emeritus Research Professor at the Department of Sociology, Rhodes University, South Africa, where he heads the Unit of Zimbabwean Studies, which he founded. The Unit was formed in 2015 and seeks to contribute to the development of emerging, early-career, and mid-career Zimbabwean (and other) scholars. He publishes widely on Zimbabwean history, politics, and society and has supervised a significant number of PhD and MA students.

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