Masters Degrees (Centre for Africa Studies)
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Browsing Masters Degrees (Centre for Africa Studies) by Subject "Chiefdoms -- Zimbabwe"
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Item Open Access The colonial archive and contemporary chieftainship claims: the case of Zimbabwe, 1935 to 2014(University of the Free State, 2015-07) Bishi, George; Phimister, I. R.; Williams, R.English: This thesis focuses on the uses of the colonial archive in contemporary Zimbabwe by people and families claiming chieftaincy. It uses five selected case studies: Chidziva in Masvingo, Sanyanga and Mutsago in Manicaland, Seke in Mashonaland East, and Musaigwa in Mashonaland Central Provinces of Zimbabwe. All these cases submitted written claims reports to the Ministry of Local Government for consideration for traditional leadership positions. These claims were made after Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform of 2000. At the same time, the government empowered traditional leaders to win their support against the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). As a result of these developments, claimants to chieftaincy also emerged. To convince Local Government officials, claimants were expected to submit elaborate claims reports showing their genealogies, family trees, chieftaincies histories and territorial boundaries. It is in these circumstances that claimants resort to the National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ) looking for their histories in the colonial archive. Claimants hire ethnographers, archaeologists and historians to document their family or clan histories. Claimants and contracted historians both rely on colonial documents for evidence. They also use oral evidence to compliment archival evidence or to dispute it if the colonial record does not support the claimant’s case. In the light of these contemporary claims to chieftaincy, this dissertation discusses the establishment of the NAZ, not only as a site of ‘national memory’ but also as a strategic research institution so far as chieftaincy is concerned. It analyses the generation of archival sources, their acquisition and accessibility governed by access regimes at the NAZ and how this subsequently affects chieftaincy research. The dissertation discusses the nature and usefulness of archival sources claimants used to document claims reports. In the process, this study suggests supplementary sources within and without NAZ repositories that are overlooked by historians. The study also explores the dynamics of claims to chieftaincy in present day Zimbabwe. While some chieftaincy succession disputes predate colonialism, others are a product of colonial legacies. The study situates itself within the broader literature, the so-called indigenous historiography that emerged in the 1990s. It focuses on how indigenous peoples in countries such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Malaysia filed land claims. They used customary rights, colonial treaties and archives for evidence to justify their claims. However, this thesis argues that archives can be used for political and social benefits by claimants of chieftaincy in Zimbabwe.