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Item Open Access 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.Item Open Access ‘Angels and Demons’? the Dutch Reformed Church and Anticommunism in Twentieth Century South Africa(University of the Free State, 2021-11) Fourie, Ruhan; Koorts, Lindie; Du Toit, Jackie; Fevre, ChrisAfrikaner memories of apartheid are filled with images of an omnipotent communist threat, or the so-called Rooi Gevaar (Red Peril). This thesis explains why and how the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa (DRC), the organisation with the widest reach and deepest influence in the everyday lives of Afrikaners, played a significant role in perpetuating an anticommunist imagination amongst twentieth century Afrikaners. It fills a lacuna in the historiography of South African anticommunism, which has up until now been confined to a state-centric approach. Drawing on international theoretical frameworks, this thesis expands the dynamics of South African anticommunism beyond a Cold War-paradigm and embraces the flexibility of the phenomenon. The DRC acts as a lens into the intricacies of South African and, more specifically, Afrikaner anticommunism. It offers an original account of South African anticommunism by integrating a wide range of archival sources from the DRC’s extensive records, those of the Afrikaner-Broederbond (AB), and personal collections of key roleplayers, including Nico Diederichs, Koot Vorster, and Piet Meyer, into a single chronological narrative. This thesis argues that the DRC formed the backbone of Afrikaner anticommunism throughout the twentieth century. It illustrates that the church was not always the main driver, nor was its influence consistent. However, as a vessel of moral anticommunist propaganda, the DRC fulfilled a critical role in legitimising overt opposition to and suppression of ‘communism’ in all its perceived manifestations, including black dissent, whilst also creating an Afrikaner imagination – even at times a moral panic – in which the volk remained convinced of the ever-present communist threat, and of its own role as a bulwark against communism. Anticommunism, argues this thesis, functioned as a vehicle for nationalist unity (and uniformity), a paradigm for Afrikaner identity, and a legitimiser of the volk’s perceptions of its imagined moral high ground.Item Open Access Botswana-South Africa economic relations: a history, 1966-2014(University of the Free State, 2019-02) Sechele, Unaludo; Graham, Matthew; Phimister, Ian; Frank, SarahEnglish: This thesis examines economic relations between Botswana and South Africa from 1966 to 2014 from Botswana’s perspective. It begins by describing different historical junctures in the economic history of the two countries, including but not limited to, the renegotiation of the Southern African Customs Union in 1969, which was required after the independence of the British High Commission territories, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. It suggests that though the renegotiated agreement was far from ideal, it was better than the original 1910 agreement. The thesis examines Botswana’s transition from a pastoral economy to one based on minerals, particularly diamonds from 1966 and 1972. It argues that Botswana’s tremendous economic growth in this period was buttressed by the partnership between the Botswana government and De Beers, a large South African mining company. Working together, their partnership formed Debswana, one of the biggest diamond companies in the world. This period was touted as Botswana’s economic miracle, but Botswana’s economic dependence on South Africa was never far from the surface, something the apartheid regime took advantage of in the 1980s. Expectations after 1994 of a fundamentally changed economic relationship between the two states were soon disabused. Overall, the thesis questions the extent to which Botswana escaped from the shadow cast by its vastly bigger neighbour, South Africa.Item Open Access Caregiving: a feminist perspective on the lived experiences of caregivers in Harare(University of the Free State, 2021-10) Mahomva, Sarudzai; Bredenkamp, I. M.; Lake, N. C.In the light of the exponential increase in the population of the elderly, studies have predicted the care crisis of this population group unless adequate measures are taken. This qualitative gender-sensitive case study, which is guided by the symbolic interactionism perspective, argues that one of the possible ways of circumventing the likely elder “care crisis” is to delineate the ‘who’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of unpaid elder care work in a family setting. Studies from Zimbabwe report on “families” taking care of the elderly. What is not well reported is exactly who does what, how and why within the family setting in an urban environment. What is known is that women are the primary caregivers, and they are also reported as disproportionately affected by poverty and disease (Zimbabwe Census, 2012). However, some studies report on adverse outcomes that are accumulated over the life course, when women place the needs of others before themselves. This study set out to determine the socio-cultural factors amongst other factors that influence who the caregivers are in families and interpret how such socio-cultural practices possibly contribute to placing unpaid family caregivers at risk of poverty. Participants aged 60+ who have cumulative experience as caregivers and receivers were purposefully selected to narrate their experience and to shed light on the nature of agency and adaptive strategies that they deploy in the family provision of elder care. One-on-one life course interviews and participant observation were deployed. Concepts from (1) the life course theory, (2) feminist care conceptual frameworks and (3) feminist intersectionality theory were integrated to formulatea conceptual framework that binds separate areas of the study (gender, care and ageing) into a unified approach. The constructivist grounded theory methodology that guided this study is useful when extant theory does not adequately explain phenomena under study and when developing theory that explains action or social interaction. The findings suggest that care is provided through a family care network. Four main caregiver roles that work in tandem to propel the elder care family network were identified. Family birth order and not gender is prioritised in the elder care decision-making process. Caring masculinities and caring femininities were also identified in this study. Such findings contribute to the development of social policies informed by participants’ primary needs, expectations, and concerns. The findings suggest the necessity to expand the notion of social citizenship by possibly exploring some of the indigenous ethics of care practices such as ‘zunde ramambo’ as described in this study.Item Open Access Chiefs and government in post-colonial Zimbabwe: the case of Makoni District, 1980-2014(University of the Free State, 2015-11) Nkomo, Lotti; Phimister, I. R.; Masakure, C.English: This study explores the relationship between chiefs and government in Zimbabwe during the period 1980-2014. It examines how the interactions between chiefs and government evolved over three and a half decades, with specific reference to the Makoni District of Manicaland Province. The abovementioned relationship was marked by three broad phases, namely 1980-1986, 1987-1999 and 2000-2014. The phases corresponded with variations in the political climate. These changes carry the central theme of the study, namely the way in which the relationship was informed by changing political imperatives. As the case of Makoni District reveals, chiefs were rejected by the independence government in 1980 for their perceived role as anti-nationalists; they were courted when political challenges began to appear in the late 1980s; and they were effectively co-opted when more powerful political threats emerged in 1999 with the rise of strong opposition politics. The defining features of the relationship evolved around the chiefs’ power over land and judicial affairs. At first, the chiefs were stripped of their judicial and land powers when their relationship with the government was characterised by hostility. These powers were restored when the government needed the chiefs’ political support. Using the case of Makoni chiefs, the aim of the study is to show how the ZANU PF government initially rejected and later co-opted chiefs in its administrative and political system for its hegemonic convenience.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.Item Open Access Conflict and cooperation: "new farmers" in Zimbabwe, 2000-2015(University of the Free State, 2019-02) Kufandirori, Joyline Takudzwa; Pilossof, R.; Mseba, A.; Passemiers, L.English: This thesis explores the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) in Mashonaland Central Province, Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2015. It investigates the impact of continuous lawlessness and new farmer relations on productivity and land use after the implementation of the FTLRP. It argues that the FTLRP ushered in an unprecedented shift in Zimbabwe’s agriculture landscape which radically transformed society, as new farmers walked into commercial land without structured or sustained support. The thesis explores how the political strategy adopted by the government from the year 2000 onwards to acquire land from the white owners continued to haunt the new farmers as there was no effort by the government to reconstitute institutions and laws that would guarantee respect and protection of property after the invasions. The government adopted a strategy that ignored existing laws that countered occupations and enacted laws to protect the occupiers. As such, the new farmers were vulnerable to the same anarchic political climate that had been faced by their white counterparts during the farm seizures. The thesis, therefore, argues that from the inception of the FTLRP to as late as 2015, insecurity occasioned by the general lawlessness commonplace at the time shaped the manner in which new farmers related to each other and was a major constraint to increased productivity. It contends that farmers had to cope with a new set of challenges that required major configurations in relations. The result was that the lawlessness, coupled with loopholes inherent within government policy on land allocation and resettlement, shaped the nature of relations that emerged in the new farming landscape. The thesis offers a comprehensive account of land use patterns and conflict among newly resettled farmers. It examines how the FTLRP brought about clashes amongst new land occupiers in the new agrarian terrain. It assesses how these struggles impacted on productivity and land use. The thesis also acknowledges the fact that relations amongst the farmers have not only been confrontantional but have also been characterised by instances of cooperation. It, investigates how new farming patterns and demands have called upon the farmers to conjure up innovative ways of relating to each other especially in the context of the fragility occasioned by the lawlessness that pervaded the period. This thesis, therefore, considers relations amongst the new farmers and persistent lawlessness as crucial in assessing land use and production in the resettlement areas.Item Open Access Continuity and change: an evaluation of the democracy-foreign policy nexus in post-apartheid South Africa(Faculty of the Humanities, University of the Free State, 2010-09) Hudson, HeidiIf foreign policy is viewed as an “intermestic” arena where the external meets the internal, then it becomes possible to see how internal domestic factors drive foreign policy making. In this context the democracy-foreign policy nexus and the role of governmental and non-governmental foreign policy actors help to reconcile ideals and interests and put foreign policy contradictions into perspective. The desirability of democratic participation in foreign policy is taken as a given, but agency has to go beyond representation to include issues of participation and political dialogue. The focus of this article is the democratic deficit of the Mbeki foreign policy (1999-2008), with some reference to the Zuma administration. The way in which foreign policy was personalised under the presidency of Mbeki was instrumental in closing the space for meaningful participation in the foreign policy processes. The article concludes that democratic foreign policy making is impeded by an overall deterioration in the quality of democracy in post-apartheid South Africa. It further contends that there is more continuity than change across the Mbeki and Zuma administrations’ policy orientations (both domestic and foreign) and warns that the challenges which Mbeki faced in terms of democratic consolidation may be exacerbated in the Zuma period if certain demons are not tackled head on.Item Open Access Corrective rape and black lesbian sexualities in contemporary South African cultural texts(University of the Free State, 2017-01) Lake, Nadine Catherine; Björklund, JennyThe increased visibility of black lesbian identities in South Africa has been met with a severe backlash in the form of what activists term corrective rape. South African newspapers started to report on the incidence of this phenomenon in 2003 with black lesbians emerging in newspaper discourse as particularly vulnerable victims. The term corrective rape has been used to define rape that is perpetrated by heterosexual males against lesbian women in order to ‘correct’ or ‘cure’ them of their lesbian sexuality. The increased recognition of lesbian, gay, transgender and intersex rights in post-apartheid South Africa has meant increased visibility for sexual minorities but has simultaneously been marked by an increase in homophobic discourse and violence. Newspapers have reported on the brutal nature of corrective rape and have given sensationalised accounts of these rapes and violence. Black lesbian women have thus entered into the public sphere in post-apartheid South Africa as victims of homophobic rape and violence. Discourse in mainstream media or the printed press has contributed to the framing of black lesbians as unintelligible victims. Contemporary scholarship on black lesbians has consistently referenced the violence associated with their identity. The primary aim of the study is to clarify how lesbian women are represented in cultural texts and to identify counter discourses that focus on lesbian agency and desire, which is less commonly associated with their sexuality. Previous research on corrective rape has largely focused on the intersection between black lesbian identity and sexual violence as well as men and masculinities in a post-apartheid context. While this study deems it important to highlight prominent debates and media representations of black lesbian sexuality in South Africa it considers it important to resist the reproduction of narratives that associate black lesbian women with sexual violence. This study turns to literature in the post-apartheid context to examine how narratives of sexual violence challenge representations of women as objectified victims of violence. Rozena Maart’s novel The Writing Circle forms an important part of the literature chapter in this study. The recognition of oppression in women’s narratives of sexual violence and resistance on the part of the female characters in the novel constitute central counter discourses. The thesis also examines an autobiography and its potential to lend inclusion to the narratives of those formerly excluded on account of their race, gender and sexual identification. An analysis of Zandile Nkunzi Nkabinde’s poignant autobiography illustrates the power of narrations of lesbian agency to undermine the gender norms that historically have restricted representations of black lesbian identity. The study examines how lesbian identities can be reconceptualised in public lesbian cultures or in queer archives. An archive of lesbian belonging that features in this study includes the portraits of lesbian women and their narratives in the work of visual activist and photographer Zanele Muholi. The narratives of survivability, mourning and belonging in Muholi’s archive uncovered and identified in this study assist in raising consciousness around the multiplicitous nature of black lesbian sexuality in Africa and beyond.Item Open Access Democratisation and state-building in Lusophone African states: the cases of Cape Verde and Mozambique(University of the Free State, 2021-11) Canhanga, Nobre De Jesus Varela; Steyn-Kotze, Joleen; Cawood, StephanieDespite promising prospects to political transition towards a democracy, over the last 25 years, Lusophone African states, achieved very different political and economic outcomes in relation to democratization and human development. This thesis investigates the cases of Cape Verde and Mozambique to explore the political transition and democratization processes in both countries to determine what factors support and/or undermine democratization, development, and political stability. The focus of the study is within the institutionalist scholarly tradition, thus considering the correlation between political institutionalism and economic and human development. While Cape Verde has consolidated democratic rule, Mozambique embraces authoritarian rule and became increasingly undemocratic, thus consolidating a form of political hybridity. Drawing on institutionalist and structuralist theories, this study engages quality of democratic institutions and socio-economic indicators in Cape Verde and Mozambique. The research demonstrates that for an effective transition and consolidation of democracy, institutions matter; and they shape the procedural and substantive elements of deepening democracy as well as quality of governance; which are seen as critical elements of economic and human development and quality of governance. In Mozambique, with strong Marxist ideology and military influence the ruling elite captured the state, controlled political and economic power and maintained authoritarian rules that undermine state-building in the democratic tradition and democratic transition. In Cape Verde, political institutions were more inclusive, allowing for greater voice, accountability and control of corruption and consequently democratic consolidation.Item Open Access Deviance and colonial power: a history of juvenile delinquency in colonial Zimbabwe, 790-c.1960(University of the Free State, 2016-02) Mhike, Ivo; Phimister, I. R.; Law, K. V.English: This thesis is the first comprehensive study of juvenile delinquency in colonial Zimbabwe. Based on a detailed reading of archival sources generated by central government in various departments, urban municipalities, and autobiographies, it reconstructs important dimensions in the labelling and treatment of juvenile delinquency between 1890 and 1960. In doing so, it explores the socio-political development of Southern Rhodesian society and demonstrates the diversity and shifting notions of what constituted deviance and delinquency during this period. Taking issue with the existing historiography which narrowly focuses on black juvenile delinquency this thesis challenges the notion that racial distinctions overshadowed all else in the construction of juvenile delinquency, arguing that delinquency transcended race and was equally influenced by the analytical categories of class, gender and ethnicity. Through analysing the state’s ideas regarding juvenile institutions and rehabilitation, it plots the contours of the shifting notions of what constituted social and colonial order. While some Southern African historiography discusses aspects of white juvenile delinquency and racial heterogeneity, this study demonstrates how delinquency is a prism that refracts on the deep divisions within white society. It suggests a different view of empire relations by exploring the fissures within groups and the limits of racial co-operation. In addition, this thesis takes important steps toward historicising the development of childhood in colonial Zimbabwe; in doing so, it significantly modifies a number of historiographies, and opens up space for creating a more comprehensive history of childhood and youth in Africa.Item Open Access Differenciating dysfunction: domestic agency, entanglement and mediatised petitions for Africa's own solutions(University of the Free State, 2018-07) Nzioki, Mutinda (Sam); Keet, Andre; Konik, IngeAfrica’s optimistic expressions of a reawakening, a rising, to its own solutions remain nervously alive, albeit haunted by the reversals that quenched all previous enthusiasms concerning a rebirth. Still, this study draws creative impetus from African wisdom voiced in the Akamba idiom, Mbéé ndì Mwéné (No one can claim ownership of what lies ahead/the future). Being so, this study proceeds as a contemporary re-entering into part of the existing terms which calibrate the question of how to get Africa right. This process obliges consultations with earlier African voices and ideas that committed to ‘own solutions’ to post-independence problems, or rather more unflatteringly, ‘dysfunctions’. As a contemporary inquiry, this effort contends that posing adequate questions that can get to the heart of present normative life or public culture – as Lewis Gordon and Achille Mbembe put it – requires thinking in African scholarship and practice proceeding in ontological commitments which enable sharper specification of Africa’s difficult situations: for instance, bursts of ethno-religious violence, perilous migrations, xenophobia/Afrophobia, and corruption. However, seeing that many an Africanist scholarship makes these very claims, key to this challenge are the terms and approaches developed for sharper specification and adequacy, as these relate to locating, affirming and/or disregarding numerous important processes immediate to Africa’s conditions. In this regard, key concepts in this study are Africarise, differenciation, mediatisation, ground, and our way, with the central approaches being co-theorisation and relatedly, transversalism which involves creative interconnection with ideas and practices. Further still, because current life has increasingly seen mediatised expressions dominate social production, sharper specification of Africa asks of this African scholarship to connect with other generative grammars and methods of encountering Africans and Africanity. Those connections draw on established concepts that have often spoken Africa, alongside African ideas whose capacity remains un-utilised, as well as mediatised expressions in the street. However, while this process of connections and openings will unveil ugly clashes and contradictions, it offers even greater cause for affirmingpossibilities in Africa’s future.Item Open Access The experiences of newly initiated Basotho men in selected Botshabelo high schools, Free-State Province(University of the Free State, 2017) Monyela, Ntsofa Clasper; Ntombana, LuvuyoThis research study in selected high schools in Botshabelo, in the Free State, sought to analyse, understand and present the lived experiences of newly initiated Basotho men, when they are incorporated back into the high school environment. Such experiences include how they see themselves as new men, how they are received and treated by both male and female teachers, as well as their interaction with other learners. Therefore, this research study was conducted within the methodology of ethnography as an academic requirement, grounded in empirical work in the discipline of African studies. The theoretical framework underpinned in this study centred mainly on two theories: 1) The Rite of Passage as proposed by Van Gennep (1960); and 2) The Psychosocial Theory proposed by Erikson (1956 and 1977). The findings noted a particular paradigm shift in the meaning of manhood which suggests and juxtaposes a dichotomy between Basotho’s cultural and traditional logic of the changing meaning of manhood in a contemporary South African context. This is influenced by an existing strong relationship between age and time for initiation, high school and initiation, as well as the type of education that ma-phura-khoatla receive from initiation. This study also noted that the newly initiated men experience mockery, stigmatization and intolerance from the majority of male teachers, a few female teachers, as well from some fellow learners. On the other hand, the findings noted a mutual and convivial relationship among the majority of female teachers, as well as other learners and the newly initiated men. Therefore, this suggests that there is a partial and very limited acknowledgement of cultural knowledge and recognition of initiation as one of the African indigenous cultural and traditional practices in these schools.Item Open Access Exploring narratives of women in leadership in post-conflict societies(University of the Free State, 2014-07-04) Morojele, Naleli; Gobodo-MadikizelaIn 2014 Rwanda had the highest representation levels of women in a national legislature. South Africa ranked eighth in the world. This is in the context of diverse women’s representation levels around the world and regionally. As a result of this diversity there is a growing academic interest and literature on women and politics. Since attaining these relatively high representation levels Rwanda and South Africa have become the subject of a growing body of research on women and leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study contributes to this area of research on women and politics. The aim of this study was to gather life narratives of women in political leadership in Rwanda and South Africa in order to understand the significance of life experiences in paths to leadership and motivations as women leaders. A qualitative methodology was used as it enables for a contextual and temporal analysis of social phenomena. Women political leaders from Rwanda and South Africa were interviewed about their life experiences, how they entered politics and/or government, and they were also asked about their views on instruments such as gender quotas, as well as their views on criticisms of women’s leadership in their countries. This study found that while not all women leaders benefit from gender quotas they overwhelmingly support them as a means of increasing women’s representation where patriarchal gender ideologies and structural gender inequalities exist. It was also found that women leaders’ personal experiences are the result of the context within which they occur. These are experiences that are a result of their social locations in the societies in which they grew up. Their social locations in specific contexts influenced them in terms of their access to education, their professions, and their entries into politics. For some of these women it led to the development of a consciousness of the different kinds of inequalities that exist in society and the need create a country in which racial, gender and class inequalities do not exist (South Africa). For other women it is a realisation of the necessity of having an efficient government and a growing economy to promote peace and maintain a stable society and the importance of using woman as a resource to achieve this objective (Rwanda).Item Open Access Fast track land reform in Matepatepa commercial farming area, Bindura district: effects on farm workers, 2000 – 2010(University of the Free State, 2015-11) Kufandirori, Joyline Takudzwa; Phimister, I. R.; Pilossof, R.English: This dissertation examines the effects of Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) on farm workers from 2000 to 2010. It looks at how farm workers fared during and after the process and how they dealt with the new conditions that ensued. It examines the nature of their relationships with their new employers and how the conditions under which they were employed changed and the impact of such changes on their livelihoods. The thesis also surveys the conditions of farm workers who took up other sources of livelihood after the land reform programme. It uses a case study of Matepatepa Commercial Farming area as a window to investigate the impact of the land reform exercise on farm workers in Zimbabwe. Matepatepa is located about 22 kms north of Bindura, Mashonaland Central’s provincial capital. The thesis mainly utilises narratives from farm workers in Matepatepa to explain the nature of their participation in the land reform programme and examines their relationship with some of the players who were central to the process, for example, war veterans, the government and other peasant farmers. In order to obtain a clearer understanding of the effects of the reform on farm workers’ livelihoods, the study also focuses on their conditions before the land reform and how they nurtured and developed their relations with their employers. It investigates the impact of the FTLRP in the context of the wider nature of Zimbabwe’s political and economic environment and assesses the impact of Zimbabwe’s political economy in shaping farm workers’ reactions to the changes brought about by the land reform exercise. The study acknowledges the fraught political background within which the land reform programme was carried out and consequently investigates the effect of such a background in determining the parameters within which farm workers could manoeuvre.Item Open Access Financing rebellion: the Rhodesian state, financial policy and exchange control, 1962-1979(University of the Free State, 2015-11) Nyamunda, Tinashe; Phimister, I. R.; Cohen, A. P.English: This thesis examines the history of finance and exchange control under the Rhodesian Front (RF) government between 1962 and 1979. Outlining the background to Southern Rhodesia’s incorporation within Britain’s imperial network from 1890 to 1962, the study’s primary focus is on how the Colony emerged from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1963 to reconstitute a financial system capable of operating independently from Britain. The Rhodesian case study illustrates the antagonism between British financial interests and colonial financial policies. The political impasse over the Rhodesian question centered on finance as a tool of coercion by London, and conversely, as a rebel bulwark against the metropole. Following UDI in 1965, financial and economic sanctions were imposed by Britain and subsequently the United Nations (UN). The various settlement negotiations that ensued were unsuccessful in stopping the rebellion until the Lancaster House Conference in 1979. The process whereby Rhodesia survived sanctions by the use of financial measures supported by strategic political alliances and trade arrangements with South Africa and Portugal is clearly examined. It was not until the escalation of the guerrilla struggle in the 1970s that the rebel monetary system began to buckle. The study traces the measures taken by Britain and the UN to end the Rhodesian rebellion, including the effects this had on London as well as the geopolitical implications for Southern Africa, notably South Africa and Zambia. It utilizes primary material from Zimbabwean, South African and British archives to determine the different strategies involved and their effects on Britain and Rhodesia. The thesis also discusses the extent to which broader international events influenced developments in Rhodesia, for example, the collapse of the Bretton Woods financial system in 1971, the oil shock in 1973 and the global economic recessions which they triggered and their effects on the Colony. Central to this analysis is how Salisbury’s financial administration was coordinated by a Ministerial Economic Coordination Committee to sustain the different elements of the Rhodesian rebellion at different stages until a point was reached when the only option was compromise at Lancaster. Not limited to an examination of the effects of sanctions, the thesis is a study of a neglected area of Zimbabwean and general economic history: colonial financial systems in their transition to a postcolonial state.Item Open Access Foreign capital, state and the development of secondary industry in Southern Rhodesia, 1939-1956(University of the Free State, 2015-07) Gwande, Victor Muchineripi; Phimister, I. R.; Van Zyl-Hermann, D.English: This thesis is a detailed historical study that examines the nature and extent of foreign capital investment in Southern Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe) between 1939 and 1956, with particular focus on the development of secondary industry. A number of scholars have commented that, with the exception of South Africa, no country was as dominated by foreign capital as Southern Rhodesia. However, this claim has not been investigated empirically in great depth. The study therefore offers an account of the development of secondary industry and also demonstrates the penetration of foreign capital into this sector. This thesis argues that, while the development of secondary industries had gathered momentum during the war years, the inflow of foreign capital into secondary industries really increased during the post-war period. The trend in foreign capital inflows and the expansion of industries was consolidated by the establishment of the Central African Federation in 1953. The increase in manufacturing production occurred alongside the establishment of new industrial ventures initiated by European immigrants and local residents. In the same period influential British and South African companies took over existing small local concerns resulting in concentration of industrial production in the hands of few, big corporations. Most foreign capital came from Britain and South Africa and to a lesser extent, from the United States of America and Italy. Foreign capital came in the form of foreign direct investment or local take-overs or in a small measure through immigrants. This thesis also addressed foreign capital’s relations and partnership with the Southern Rhodesian state during this time in funding basic services and facilities pertinent to industrial development. The role of foreign capital in Southern Rhodesia’s industrialisation process was also considered in relation to the contemporaneous phenomenon of Import Substitution Industrialisation (ISI), as well as the influence of South Africa, and it concluded that industrialisation in Southern Rhodesia displayed many of the tenets of ISI as observed in Latin America.Item Open Access Government, community and the university in Africa today: the case of the National University of Lesetho(University of the Free State, 2017-01) Mushonga, Munyaradzi; Hudson, H.; Wilkinson, A. C.This study is an investigation into relations of power between government, community and the university in Africa today. The purpose of the study is to examine the nature of contestations and contradictions among triadic actors in respect of the university in Africa today. The principal research question it seeks to address is: what kind of contestations and contradictions of normative and ideological principles take place in the Triad of government, community and the university, via the case study of the National University of Lesotho (NUL)? Key objectives of the research included developing a new interpretive framework for the study of Africa and African Studies; examining how triadic contestations are a product of history; showing the preponderance of discourses of representation in universities in Africa today; and analysing the various forms of resistance immanent in universities in Africa today, occasioned by pervasive and dispersed power. To attempt to address the principal question and to meet the stated objectives, the thesis deploys key pillars of Postcolonial Theory (PC) namely representation, hybridity, agency and resistance together with the decoloniality variant through the power-knowledge-being-discourse nexus to examine relations and technologies of power in the interplay between the Government of Lesotho (GOL), the Community (global and local) and the National University of Lesotho (NUL) from 1945 to 2014. A triangulated approach was adopted in this study. Data was collected from several archival and secondary sources as well as from a wide cross-section of informants from the GOL, the Community and NUL. Multiple methodological strategies were used to collect such data – observation, interviews and unstructured questionnaires. Data was then analysed qualitatively using the grounded theory approach together with content, textual and discourse analysis methods. Theoretically and conceptually, the study suggests new approaches and new dimensions to Africa and African Studies and Higher Education Studies (HES) in order to enhance our understanding of contemporary African politics and society particularly in the 21st century. It makes a case for seeing the relations between state and non-state actors as complex, constitutive and interconnected transactions in net-like spaces which are forever evolving due to the ubiquity of „power to‟, „power with‟ and „power within‟. Findings of the study show that there are complex contestations and contradictions of both normative and ideological principles among triadic actors – not only over the meaning and purpose of the university in Africa today, but also over its control and governance. This I have demonstrated by, first, providing a theoretical/conceptual framework as well as a historical context for interpreting and understanding these contestations; and second, by empirically validating the preponderance of discourses of representation and „othering‟, hybridity, agency and resistance in the Triad in general, and in a Higher Education (HE) institution (NUL) in particular, across space and time. On the basis of these findings, I call for a constructive reading of PC which must be complemented by decoloniality theory, hence proposal for a new interpretive framework, the Integrated Postcolonial Framework (IPCF) that can respond better to complex relations of power. I also highlight some limitations of the study and also make some recommendations for further research in order to bring to the fore more concrete data regarding the purpose and mission of a university in Africa in a fast decolonising yet globalising environment.Item Open Access A history of archives in Zambia, 1890-1991(University of the Free State, 2019-02) Simabwachi, Miyanda; Koorts, Lindie; Du Toit, Jackie; Holdridge, ChrisEnglish: This thesis examines the significant role of national archives’ legislative framework, and of archival practices of appraisal, preservation and management, in the creation, positioning and formation of an identity for Zambia’s archives under different government systems between 1890 and 1991. In so doing, it describes the procedures involved in the creation of archives and demonstrates the diversity and the shifting notions of the nature and importance of archives for bureaucracies and different government systems. While the British South African Company administration pioneered the process of generating records through administrative operations, their appreciation of records and archives was largely functional and devoid of devising a formal policy for standardising permanent preservation and collection practices. A conceptual shift to archives as sources of precedents and of colonial histories, prompted successive administrations of British colonial government and the federal government of Rhodesia and Nyasaland to devise a system of centralisation of permanent archives and the formulation of legislation denoting the nature of the archives and their safe preservation – thus changing the power dynamic lodged in the archives. In the postcolony, an understanding of archives as custodian of national histories attracted intensive state interest and control through reviews of colonial archives legislation and strategic decentralisation of the archiving system. This thesis argues that Zambia’s archives have a history linked to changing administrative structures, legislative frameworks and archival perceptions and practices. It argues that the nature and position of Zambia’s archives in government, and hence its history, evolved over time with shifts in administration, legislation, archival professionalisation and practices of preservation and management and changes in the perception of archives.Item Open Access A history of marriage and citizenship: Kalanga women’s experiences in post-colonial Botswana until 2005(University of the Free State, 2015-02) Sechele, Unaludo; Phimister, I. R.; Spence, D.English: This study examines Kalanga women‟s experiences in relation to marriage and citizenship legislation in Botswana between 1966 and 2005. The analyses of the study are based on legislation affecting all women in Botswana, but are specifically focused on a group of rural women of Kalanga origin. A number of legislations in Botswana affected the Kalanga women, but the emphasis of this study falls on the Citizenship Act (1984), leading to its amendment in 1995, and the Abolition of Marital Power Act (2004). The Citizenship Act (1984) had to be amended because it discriminated against women as it rendered the passing on of citizenship to children patrilineal. The Abolition of Marital Power Act (2004), on the other hand, came about as a result of oppression that married women faced as they did not have rights and were considered minors as per common and customary law. This study also traces the events of the Unity Dow case, and the extent to which it helped improve the status of Kalanga women. Dow took the government to Court in 1990 as she believed that she too had the right to pass citizenship on to her children despite the fact that she was married to a foreign citizen. The High Court and the Court of Appeal ruled in her favour as the Act itself contradicted the country‟s constitution. Kalanga women who faced the same challenge as Unity Dow benefited from the court ruling. After the Government lost the case it was forced to amend either the Citizenship Act (1984) or the constitution. Amending the constitution so as to allow gender discrimination was not an option. This was because the world had started to pay attention to women‟s rights in Botswana. The patriarchal nature of the Kalanga ethnic group, gave men marital power. Hence, this study examined how the Abolition of Marital Power Act (2004) improved the status of women in their families and examined whether they benefited from the newly instituted Act.
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