The politics of youth struggles for land in post-land reform Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

The youth in post-land reform Zimbabwe are engaged in struggles for land ownership, access and control. This article focuses on youth struggles from the grassroots to the national level. The struggles for land emanate from a number of factors among which are: elite alienation, the state’s failure to exercise its constitutional mandate of a broad-based land reform, weak economic structure, the conflation of party and state politics, political opportunity calculations and social justice concerns. The conflation of party and state politics has exacerbated the use of land for patronage purposes and led to further youth disenfranchisement and more parochialism, as demonstrated by the narrowing of the youth’s national struggle for land to a party political matter. This has subordinated youth land struggles to the dictates of party politics. Youth in the rural areas unable to access productive land embarked on informal land occupation as they waited for unfulfilled promises from the authorities. The youth struggles are at a crossroads as the state’s narrative, discourse and policy position shifts under a new administration and economic order premised on neoliberalism.

RÉSUMÉ

Dans le Zimbabwe post-réforme agraire, les jeunes sont engagés dans des luttes pour la possession, l’accès et le contrôle des terres. L’article se concentre sur les luttes des jeunes du niveau local au niveau national. Les luttes pour la terre émanent d’un certain nombre de facteurs : parmi eux, l’aliénation des élites ; l’incapacité de l’Etat à exercer son mandat constitutionnel de réforme agraire de grande envergure ; structure économique faible ; l’amalgame entre politiques partisanes et politiques de l’Etat ; calcul des opportunités politiques ; et les préoccupations de justice sociale. L’amalgame entre politiques partisanes et politiques de l’Etat a exacerbé l’utilisation des terres à des fins de favoritisme, et a conduit à la privation des droits des jeunes et au renforcement d’un certain esprit de clocher, comme en témoigne la réduction de la lutte foncière nationale des jeunes jusqu’à devenir une considération exclusivement menée au niveau des partis politiques. Cela a soumis la lutte foncière des jeunes aux exigences des politiques partisanes. Les jeunes des zones rurales qui n’ont pas pu accéder à des terres productives se sont lancés dans une occupation informelle des terres en attendant que les promesses des autorités soient tenues. Les luttes des jeunes arrivent à un tournant alors que le discours et la position politique de l’État changent sous une nouvelle administration, avec un ordre économique fondé sur le néolibéralisme.

KEYWORDS:

• Land reform
• youth
• struggles
• state
• politics
• Zimbabwe

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Réforme agraire
• jeunesse
• luttes
• Etat
• politique
• Zimbabwe

Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to Sandra Bhatasara, Davet Muzwidzwa, Richwell T. Musoma and Freedom Changara for comments on the earlier drafts of this article. We are also indebted to the research participants. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for the comments, suggestions, criticism and advice. We are also highly indebted to the ROAPE editorial team for the comments, directions and support that greatly improved this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Fadzai Chipato is a PhD student in the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University. She researches on displacements induced in the name of development, hydro-politics, rural politics and livelihoods.

Wang Libin is a professor of rural development in the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University and researches on rural development, poverty reduction, livelihoods, state and development.

Ting Zuo is a professor of rural and social security studies in the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University. He has been working in agriculture and rural development, poverty reduction, community-based natural resource management and rural public policies and governance since 1989.

George T. Mudimu is a PhD student in the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University. He researches on land politics, rural politics, social movements, agrarian change and political economy.

Notes

1 The vleis provide preferable agricultural land due to their perennial access to water.

2 During the FTLRP, peasants protested against Mrs Jackson, a white farmer who used to live at Toplands farm (5 kilometres from Riverside), who had made racial remarks against peasants, and she was forced to submit an apology (Sakata 2016).

3 ‘Released’: in the local community, this term means to be freed from the grip of the employer.

4 Marx (1976) uses the term ‘appear’ to show that what we see on the surface is not the reality and that we should look for the underlying forces.

5 Shovel-ready: the term used to describe land that is flat, easy to prepare and ready for crop growing.

6 The company also exports quarried stone to regional neighbours: this shows how big it is.

7 Interviews with government officials indicate that the land allocations to the youth during that time (Mugabe’s final moments) have been put on hold.

8 Togarepi is over 50 years old. Chipanga was in his late thirties, and was removed at the same time as Mugabe in November 2017.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by International Poverty Reduction Centre of China: [grant ref. 2017/2018].