Doctoral Degrees (Centre for Africa Studies)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Centre for Africa Studies) by Subject "Acquisition"

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    Acquisition, ownership and use of natural resources in South Eastern Zimbabwe, 1929-1969
    (University of the Free State, 2015-12) Ndumeya, Noel; Phimister, I. R.; Masakure, C.
    English: This study examines patterns of natural resources distribution and land use in south eastern Zimbabwe, originally known as Melsetter, and later Melsetter and Chipinga Districts. The study focuses on land utilisation, water, game and indigenous timber uses from 1929 to 1969. Prior to white occupation of this area, Africans owned and used these resources under precolonial communal tenure systems. The means by which these resources were seized, particularly in what became the white settler areas of the Melsetter and Chipinga Highlands, is traced from the mid-1890s onwards. Thereafter changing ownership and land use transformations are examined in detail among the diverse inhabitants of this region. African livelihood experiences during the Great Depression of c 1929-1939 are closely analysed, and their agency is brought out through the ways in which they challenged colonial policy. In the pre-1945 era, although the best land had already been alienated, Africans continued to use these resources as labour tenants. That the Melsetter District had great agricultural potential partly explains why it attracted white settlement as early as the mid-1890s. The study also analyses why, when compared to other white settled districts, for more than fifty years after colonial occupation, Melsetter remained an agriculturally backward and undercapitalised settler region. After the Second World War, parts of the region were transformed by the acquisition of land by corporate timber concerns. In the 1960s, coffee growers who arrived mostly from east Africa settled in parts of this region. By embarking on commercial coffee production, they had a significant impact on the agricultural history of the area. These secondary land acquisitions are explored at three levels; firstly, as a local reflection of changing global political and economic conditions; secondly, the intensive use of land resources, and how this had a direct impact on the Africans who formerly utilised this land as tenants and, thirdly; changing African reactions especially where this led to direct confrontation. These historical developments are examined within the broad context of the heterogeneous societies inhabiting this region.