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ABSTRACT
The Chiadzwa diamonds attracted widespread attention due to human rights violations and illegal smuggling. When diamonds were discovered in 2006, thousands of artisanal miners descended on the diamond fields. In response, the government unleashed the army and police in brutal crackdowns to drive artisanal miners off the diamond fields. This militarisation of diamond fields and extraction was followed by forced displacement of the Chiadzwa people. This article examines the lived, everyday experiences of the displaced Chiadzwa people. Findings reveal that displacements dislocated the livelihoods and socialities of the people. Displacements also exacerbated people's vulnerability to livelihood shocks, insecurity, and poverty. In relocating people the government adopted a ‘top-down’ approach which triggered contestations and conflicts with the people who felt alienated from their ancestral land and excluded from diamond wealth. Consequently, sabotage, resistance and subversion were commonplace in the relocation process. These socio-political ‘tactics’ should be viewed as ‘weapons of the weak’.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Simbarashe Gukurume is a lecturer and faculty research chair at Great Zimbabwe University. Simbarashe holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Simbarashe’s research interests focuses more broadly on sociology of youth, informality and livelihoods, displacements, ethnography of money, politics and social movements and Pentecostalism. He has been a recipient of several prestigious research and fellowship awards such as the Harry Frank Guggenheim Young African Scholars award, New York, the Matasa Network fellowship award, IDS, University of Sussex, Emerging Young African Scholars Fellowship, Carnegie Corporation, New York, USA, the Academy for African Urban Diversity award, Max Planck Institute, Germany. He is also a 2016 Brown International Advanced Research Institute (BIARI) fellow, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States.
Lloyd Nhodo holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Currently, he is a lecturer and Work-Related Learning Coordinator at Great Zimbabwe University, in the Department of sociology and Social anthropology in Zimbabwe. His research interests include human security, conflict, livelihoods and forced displacement.
Notes
1 All the names used in this article are anonymised to protect the privacy and confidentiality of participants.
2 Rukuvhute translates as umbilical cord and its linkages with the place one is from. It is commonplace for many rural people to have their umbilical cord buried at their ancestral home if possible. After death it is considered ideal to be buried at one’s traditional ancestral rural home. Rukuvhute thus relates to the symbolic and spiritual connection that people have to their ancestral land. As such, displacement disconnects people from home and ways of feeling and being at home, sense of community and identity.