Kirk Helliker
Biographic Data
| ID | 73758 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kirk Helliker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kirk |
| FAMILY NAME | Helliker |
| SIGNATURE | HELLIKER K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rhodes University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2356-0433 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 62 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 7 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Lines of negotiation
This paper reconceptualises fishing as a dynamic, multispecies negotiation involving fish, fishers, and fishing technologies, using Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe as a case study to develop broader analytical insights. While prior research at Kariba has largely focused on human-centred perspectives, we show how both fish and technologies act as active participants in the fishing process. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, we argue that fi…
Chinese Investment in Africa
Two sides of the stream
Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme continues to attract scholarship on land and agrarian reform. The farm occupations by black Zimbabweans and subsequent displacements of white farmers and their labourers, which conditioned the emergence of fast track, impacted significantly the former farm workers, as they had to reinvent their lives thereafter. Issues focusing on livelihoods and belonging became pertinent to ex-farm workers, particular…
Culture, politics and material landscaping as strategies of belonging
This article examines the movement of former farm workers of foreign origin (mainly from Malawi, and a few from Mozambique) into the Bushu communal areas of Shamva District in Mashonaland Central Province in Zimbabwe subsequent to the disruptions caused by the state’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme beginning in the year 2000. It focuses more specifically on the project of belonging pursued by these ex-workers and their families in Bushu and the…
Lived Experiences of Borderland Communities in Zimbabwe
Making Politics in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic
Making Politics in Zimbabwe's Second Republic
Communal Land and Belonging Among Foreign Former Farmworkers in Zimbabwe
In the year 2000, the nation-wide land occupations and the ensuing Fast Track Land Reform Programme displaced tens of thousands of farm labourers from white commercial farms in Zimbabwe. Many of these farm labourers were of foreign origin, including from Malawi and Mozambique, though they had lived in Zimbabwe for extended periods. While farm labourers with Zimbabwean ancestry found it relatively easy, but not without problems in many cases, to m…
State Capitalism in Sub-Saharan Africa
Historical and contemporary analyses of state capitalism have largely by-passed Sub-Saharan Africa in that state capitalism, as a conceptual framework, has generally been absent from analyses of the region, and experiences in the region have generally been absent in discussions of, and theory-building about, state capitalism. This chapter helps redress the situation, by examining African cases, with a focus on the period from the late nineteenth …
Livelihoods of Ethnic Minorities in Rural Zimbabwe
Truce and reconciliation in Zimbabwe
Throughout history, truce-making has been an important mechanism to temporarily halt fighting between antagonistic forces. In some instances, national truces are used to usher in longer-term national reconciliation. In this regard, there is an important analytical distinction between a truce and a reconciliation. What is sometimes articulated publicly as a formal reconciliation is often merely a truce, at least from the perspective of the hegemon…
Politics at a Distance from the State
Everyday Crisis-Living in Contemporary Zimbabwe
The Orchestration of Postcolonial Zimbabwe
In many African countries, music became an essential vehicle of communication and social expression in order to build new postcolonial states. Further, throughout their independence, many African states reconsidered the direction of national culture towards a decolonisation process. As part of the broad subject of decolonial studies, this article offers a critical approach to the relationship between music and the state during a crucial period of…
Fast Track Land Occupations in Zimbabwe
Mnangagwa's Zimbabwe
Three years after the November 2017 coup in Zimbabwe and the installation of Emmerson Mnangagwa as ruling party and state president, there is growing scholarly interest in identifying the character of the post-coup regime, particularly in comparison to the 37-year reign of Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF. So far, there are continuities and changes, with increasing concerns about a qualitative shift in the militarization of Zimbabwean state and society un…
Zimbabwe
November 2017 will forever be etched in the minds of Zimbabweans, as the moment involving the end of Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule and the beginning of a post-Mugabe ‘era’ under the leadership of Emmerson Mnangagwa. It also might be considered as a watershed moment in Zimbabwean history, or at least as having the potential to be so. However, identifying key moments in Zimbabwe’s history, and continuities and changes over time, involves engaging in…
Learning and performing political violence
This article examines political violence enacted by youth during the presidential run-off election in Zimbabwe in 2008. After the presidential election in March 2008, no clear winner emerged, leading to a run-off election in June 2008 between Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In the face of a possible defeat in the run-off, ZANU-PF unleashe…
Politics at a Distance from the State
The Political Economy of Livelihoods in Contemporary Zimbabwe
The Party-State in the Land Occupations of Zimbabwe
There has been significant debate about the land occupations which occurred from the year 2000 in Zimbabwe, with a key controversy concerning the role of the state and ruling party (or party-state) in the occupations. This controversy, deriving from two grand narratives about the occupations, remains unresolved. A burgeoning literature exists on the Zimbabwean state's fast-track land reform programme, which arose in the context of the occupations…
Politics at a distance from the state
For decades, most anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements identified radical social transformation with the capture of state power. The collapse of supposedly enabling states led recently to a crisis of left and working class politics. But this has also opened space for the rediscovery of society-centred, anti-capitalist modes of bottom-up change, labelled as ‘at a distance’ politics. These modes have registered important successes in prac…
A feminist perspective on autonomism and commoning, with reference to Zimbabwe
This article engages with the autonomist Marxism of John Holloway from a feminist standpoint. The positions developed by this feminist critique are used to shed new light on the land occupations in contemporary Zimbabwe. Though sympathetic to his work, we argue that Holloway does not sufficiently address gender identity with specific reference to social reproduction and women. The notions of the commons and the process of commoning are consistent…
El Feminismo Autónomo, El Comunizar Y Las Ocupaciones De Tierras en Zimbawe
Este artículo desarrolla una perspectiva feminista autónoma mediante una conversación con la obra de marxismo autónomo de John Holloway. La relevancia de este desarrollo teórico se ve ilustrada con referencia al concepto de los comunes (o del comunizar). Más específicamente, los dones de revelación de este enfoque teórico se usan para proporcionar una crítica del movimiento de ocupaciones de tierras en Zimbabwe que despegó en 2000. Iniciamos el a…
Patriarchy, Women, Land and Livelihoods on A1 farms in Zimbabwe
In this article, we focus on patriarchy, women, land and livelihoods on A1 farms in Zimbabwe which arose from the fast track land reform programme. There is now significant literature on A1 farms in Zimbabwe. These studies include a number of ethnographic and comparative studies but this literature does not give sustained attention to patriarchy and women. In addition, though, a small number of works have appeared based upon a more focused gender…
Zimbabwe
November 2017 will forever be etched in the minds of Zimbabweans, as the moment involving the end of Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule and the beginning of a post-Mugabe ‘era’ under the leadership of Emmerson Mnangagwa. It also might be considered as a watershed moment in Zimbabwean history, or at least as having the potential to be so. However, identifying key moments in Zimbabwe’s history, and continuities and changes over time, involves engaging in…
Patriarchy, Women, Land and Livelihoods on A1 farms in Zimbabwe
In this article, we focus on patriarchy, women, land and livelihoods on A1 farms in Zimbabwe which arose from the fast track land reform programme. There is now significant literature on A1 farms in Zimbabwe. These studies include a number of ethnographic and comparative studies but this literature does not give sustained attention to patriarchy and women. In addition, though, a small number of works have appeared based upon a more focused gender…
Mnangagwa's Zimbabwe
Three years after the November 2017 coup in Zimbabwe and the installation of Emmerson Mnangagwa as ruling party and state president, there is growing scholarly interest in identifying the character of the post-coup regime, particularly in comparison to the 37-year reign of Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF. So far, there are continuities and changes, with increasing concerns about a qualitative shift in the militarization of Zimbabwean state and society un…
Learning and performing political violence
This article examines political violence enacted by youth during the presidential run-off election in Zimbabwe in 2008. After the presidential election in March 2008, no clear winner emerged, leading to a run-off election in June 2008 between Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In the face of a possible defeat in the run-off, ZANU-PF unleashe…
The Party-State in the Land Occupations of Zimbabwe
There has been significant debate about the land occupations which occurred from the year 2000 in Zimbabwe, with a key controversy concerning the role of the state and ruling party (or party-state) in the occupations. This controversy, deriving from two grand narratives about the occupations, remains unresolved. A burgeoning literature exists on the Zimbabwean state's fast-track land reform programme, which arose in the context of the occupations…
Two sides of the stream
Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme continues to attract scholarship on land and agrarian reform. The farm occupations by black Zimbabweans and subsequent displacements of white farmers and their labourers, which conditioned the emergence of fast track, impacted significantly the former farm workers, as they had to reinvent their lives thereafter. Issues focusing on livelihoods and belonging became pertinent to ex-farm workers, particular…
Civil society and state-centred struggles
This article is about civil society and state-centred struggles in contemporary Zimbabwe. I first identify and outline three current understandings of civil society. Two understandings (one Liberal, one Radical) are state-centric and exist firmly within the logic of state discourses and state politics. A third understanding, also Radical, is society-centric and speaks about politics existing at a distance from the state and possibly beyond the bo…
Culture, politics and material landscaping as strategies of belonging
This article examines the movement of former farm workers of foreign origin (mainly from Malawi, and a few from Mozambique) into the Bushu communal areas of Shamva District in Mashonaland Central Province in Zimbabwe subsequent to the disruptions caused by the state’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme beginning in the year 2000. It focuses more specifically on the project of belonging pursued by these ex-workers and their families in Bushu and the…
Communal Land and Belonging Among Foreign Former Farmworkers in Zimbabwe
In the year 2000, the nation-wide land occupations and the ensuing Fast Track Land Reform Programme displaced tens of thousands of farm labourers from white commercial farms in Zimbabwe. Many of these farm labourers were of foreign origin, including from Malawi and Mozambique, though they had lived in Zimbabwe for extended periods. While farm labourers with Zimbabwean ancestry found it relatively easy, but not without problems in many cases, to m…
Truce and reconciliation in Zimbabwe
Throughout history, truce-making has been an important mechanism to temporarily halt fighting between antagonistic forces. In some instances, national truces are used to usher in longer-term national reconciliation. In this regard, there is an important analytical distinction between a truce and a reconciliation. What is sometimes articulated publicly as a formal reconciliation is often merely a truce, at least from the perspective of the hegemon…
NGOs and rural movements in contemporary South Africa
This article provides a critical examination of relationships between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and rural movements in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly with regard to the possible subordination of movements to NGOs. In discussing NGOs as a particular organisational form, and in reviewing some arguments pertaining to NGOs and rural movements globally, I explore whether NGOs in South Africa have a progressive role to play in ag…
Zimbabwe's Land Reform
Zimbabwe's land reform: myths and realities, by Ian Scoones, Nelson Marongwe, Blasio Mavedzenge, Jacob Mahenehene, Felix Murimbarimba and Crispen Sukume, Woodbridge, Suffolk, James Currey, 2010, 30
Transcending Objectifications and Dualisms
In the academic literature, civil society is often conceptualized in terms of objectifications and subject-object dichotomies. This is the case with regard to both social movements and non-governmental organizations. This article seeks to transcend such argumentation by providing 'thick descriptions' of the agency of farm workers and civil society in the context of land reform in contemporary Zimbabwe. We examine a land-based social movement (and…
Radical Thinking in South Africa's Age of Retreat
This article traces the rise and fall of radical praxis in South Africa and offers a critique of the prevailing practices of former Marxists under post-apartheid conditions. Western Marxism emerged in the 1970s in South Africa and Marxist activists became deeply involved in the liberation movements. With the unravelling of apartheid, the main liberation forces made a social pact with capitalist forces and former Marxists embraced a statist projec…
Quality of life in Grahamstown, East London and Mdantsane
A quality of life survey amongst residents of three Eastern Cape towns, viz. Grahamstown, East London, and Mdantsane, shows that the attitudes to home and neighbourhood which urban residents in the Eastern Cape develop, are fashioned in large part by both the residential “group area” in which these urban dwellers live, and by their socio-economic status. White residents, overwhelmingly, are satisfied with their diets, their municipality, their ho…
From Control to Confusion
South African marxist state theory — a critical overview
The article provides a critical analysis of Marxist work on the South African state. It first examines the early Poulantzian‐State Derivationist debate on the relation between state and society, and then discusses the 'new directions' which focus on the state itself. The sensitivity of the 'new directions' to the traditional Weberian concern about state bureaucracy is important for enriching Marxist theory. But the article concludes by suggesting…
Marx, Weber and NGOs
This article offers a sociological understanding of intermediary NGOs in the modern world. In does so by drawing on certain epistemological insights of Marx and Weber, and this entails methodologies of both deconstruction and reconstruction. In arguing against a sociological behaviourism that pervades the NGO literature, the article conceptualises intermediary NGOs as a ‘social form’ embodying contradictory relations. For analytical purposes, the…
Dancing Around the Same Spot? Land Reform and NGOs in Zimbabwe – ! e Case of SOS Children’s Villages
This paper discusses the rural-based operations of an international NGO in Mashonaland Central province, Zimbabwe. The aim is to highlight the contingent variation of NGO practices within deftned limits. It does this through ‘thick description’ of the NGO of focus, the SOS Children’s Village, and compares its ‘handling‘ of the transforming countryside with the re- sponse of two other NGOs. It concludes by suggesting some conceptual points in unde…
Transcending Objectifications and Dualisms
In the academic literature, civil society is often conceptualized in terms of objectifications and subject-object dichotomies. This is the case with regard to both social movements and non-governmental organizations. This article seeks to transcend such argumentation by providing 'thick descriptions' of the agency of farm workers and civil society in the context of land reform in contemporary Zimbabwe. We examine a land-based social movement (and…
Zimbabwe's Land Reform
Zimbabwe's land reform: myths and realities, by Ian Scoones, Nelson Marongwe, Blasio Mavedzenge, Jacob Mahenehene, Felix Murimbarimba and Crispen Sukume, Woodbridge, Suffolk, James Currey, 2010, 30
Civil society and state-centred struggles
This article is about civil society and state-centred struggles in contemporary Zimbabwe. I first identify and outline three current understandings of civil society. Two understandings (one Liberal, one Radical) are state-centric and exist firmly within the logic of state discourses and state politics. A third understanding, also Radical, is society-centric and speaks about politics existing at a distance from the state and possibly beyond the bo…
Radical Thinking in South Africa's Age of Retreat
This article traces the rise and fall of radical praxis in South Africa and offers a critique of the prevailing practices of former Marxists under post-apartheid conditions. Western Marxism emerged in the 1970s in South Africa and Marxist activists became deeply involved in the liberation movements. With the unravelling of apartheid, the main liberation forces made a social pact with capitalist forces and former Marxists embraced a statist projec…
Conference on ‘Land, Race and Nation in South Africa’, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, 19–22 June 2013
Marxisms past and present
Marxism was central to the understanding of South Africa's struggle for freedom. This article provides a critical analysis of Marxist literature on South Africa since the 1970s, drawing out its relevance for contemporary analyses of the post-apartheid state and for radical politics today. It suggests that while the literature offered important insights into the character of the apartheid state, it failed to provide a critical appraisal of the sta…
NGOs and rural movements in contemporary South Africa
This article provides a critical examination of relationships between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and rural movements in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly with regard to the possible subordination of movements to NGOs. In discussing NGOs as a particular organisational form, and in reviewing some arguments pertaining to NGOs and rural movements globally, I explore whether NGOs in South Africa have a progressive role to play in ag…
Liberation movements in power
Zimbabwe takes back its land
Kirk HellikerDepartment of Sociology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South [email protected]© 2014, Kirk Helliker
Patriarchy, Women, Land and Livelihoods on A1 farms in Zimbabwe
In this article, we focus on patriarchy, women, land and livelihoods on A1 farms in Zimbabwe which arose from the fast track land reform programme. There is now significant literature on A1 farms in Zimbabwe. These studies include a number of ethnographic and comparative studies but this literature does not give sustained attention to patriarchy and women. In addition, though, a small number of works have appeared based upon a more focused gender…
Politics at a distance from the state
For decades, most anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements identified radical social transformation with the capture of state power. The collapse of supposedly enabling states led recently to a crisis of left and working class politics. But this has also opened space for the rediscovery of society-centred, anti-capitalist modes of bottom-up change, labelled as ‘at a distance’ politics. These modes have registered important successes in prac…
A feminist perspective on autonomism and commoning, with reference to Zimbabwe
This article engages with the autonomist Marxism of John Holloway from a feminist standpoint. The positions developed by this feminist critique are used to shed new light on the land occupations in contemporary Zimbabwe. Though sympathetic to his work, we argue that Holloway does not sufficiently address gender identity with specific reference to social reproduction and women. The notions of the commons and the process of commoning are consistent…
El Feminismo Autónomo, El Comunizar Y Las Ocupaciones De Tierras en Zimbawe
Este artículo desarrolla una perspectiva feminista autónoma mediante una conversación con la obra de marxismo autónomo de John Holloway. La relevancia de este desarrollo teórico se ve ilustrada con referencia al concepto de los comunes (o del comunizar). Más específicamente, los dones de revelación de este enfoque teórico se usan para proporcionar una crítica del movimiento de ocupaciones de tierras en Zimbabwe que despegó en 2000. Iniciamos el a…
The Political Economy of Livelihoods in Contemporary Zimbabwe
The Party-State in the Land Occupations of Zimbabwe
There has been significant debate about the land occupations which occurred from the year 2000 in Zimbabwe, with a key controversy concerning the role of the state and ruling party (or party-state) in the occupations. This controversy, deriving from two grand narratives about the occupations, remains unresolved. A burgeoning literature exists on the Zimbabwean state's fast-track land reform programme, which arose in the context of the occupations…
Politics at a Distance from the State
Zimbabwe
November 2017 will forever be etched in the minds of Zimbabweans, as the moment involving the end of Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule and the beginning of a post-Mugabe ‘era’ under the leadership of Emmerson Mnangagwa. It also might be considered as a watershed moment in Zimbabwean history, or at least as having the potential to be so. However, identifying key moments in Zimbabwe’s history, and continuities and changes over time, involves engaging in…
Learning and performing political violence
This article examines political violence enacted by youth during the presidential run-off election in Zimbabwe in 2008. After the presidential election in March 2008, no clear winner emerged, leading to a run-off election in June 2008 between Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In the face of a possible defeat in the run-off, ZANU-PF unleashe…
Everyday Crisis-Living in Contemporary Zimbabwe
The Orchestration of Postcolonial Zimbabwe
In many African countries, music became an essential vehicle of communication and social expression in order to build new postcolonial states. Further, throughout their independence, many African states reconsidered the direction of national culture towards a decolonisation process. As part of the broad subject of decolonial studies, this article offers a critical approach to the relationship between music and the state during a crucial period of…
Political science (33 works) · Sociology (28 works) · African studies and sociopolitical issues (25 works) · Law (19 works) · Politics (19 works) · Geography (15 works) · Political economy (13 works) · African history and culture studies (12 works) · Agriculture (10 works) · Archaeology (10 works)