Thebe
Biographic Data
| ID | 52914 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thebe |
| FAMILY NAME | Thebe |
| SIGNATURE | THEBE |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pretoria |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1220-7458 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 54 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Paradox of Survival
Muzarabani district of Zimbabwe is plagued by chronic food insecurity, where households resort to various livelihood strategies to cope with economic adversity. This study examines the paradoxical nature of these strategies, as they can have both positive and negative impacts on household food security. The research explores how the context, shocks, assets, institutions, activities and strategies of rural households in Muzarabani interact to shap…
When the cross-border remittance system fails
Cross-border remittances from South Africa have played a central role in the food availability and well-being of migrant labour households in semi-arid Zimbabwe. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and containment measures introduced by both the South African and Zimbabwean governments hampered the cross-border remittance system and the movement of goods. This paper explores the food provisioning and availability impacts of the changes…
Identity, experience, and non-partisan
This paper explores the place and role of chiefs and their institution in the governance and development of rural society in South Africa, using a case study of six tribal authorities in the Moses Kotane Local Municipality, North West Province. It examines whether chiefs have taken active development roles in their communities, and how they are perceived by society vis-à-vis community councillors. It argues that active roles and endorsement by th…
After 'Siziphile' Land Occupations
This research tries to reach an understanding of the relationship between youth, land, and livelihoods through an analysis of incidents of land self-provisioning by youth in a former labour reserve. Research was conducted in three villages over a 10-year period following what became known as 'siziphile' land occupations. The research contributes to contemporary debates on the youth employment, youth land struggles and livelihoods. This is done th…
Large Dam–Induced Displacements, Compensation and Conflicts
The Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase II (LHWP II) implementation in Mokhotlong district has generated bitter conflict between affected communities and the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA). This conflict has been explained in terms of dissatisfaction by affected communities over compensation. This article argues that the compensation question is complex and that the LHDA failed to appreciate the complexity of the issue. As a res…
Basali ba lifemeng”
This article explores the low absorption of male labour in Lesotho’s textile industry. The research adopted a qualitative approach to interrogate dynamics in the industry and perspectives from social actors, including textile employees, key individuals and members of society. It revealed that the dynamics of change in the industry, particularly the technological leaps achieved by some factories, have created opportunities for men but have not nec…
Changing Households Social Dynamics and Agriculture Crisis in Shamva District, Zimbabwe
This article explores household-level social dynamics of change and their causal effects on future agricultural practices and food security. It does this by employing a place-specific qualitative research methodology in two rural settlements in Shamva District, Mashonaland Central Province. It reveals how these changes have impacted negatively on farm households' command of assets, including draft power, labour and social networks. Households tha…
Living on the Periphery and Challenges of Mobility
Youth, Livelihoods, and Complex Realities in a Former Migrant Labour Reserve in North-western Zimbabwe
The ‘nouveau riche’ and ‘makorokoza’
Informal and Unserviceable
Siziphile Land Occupations, Wilderness Farming, Threat of the Wild and Livelihood Vulnerability in Western Lupane District
Land self-provisioning has been a strategy not only for land access for the landless, but also to rebuild or improve livelihoods for people recovering from livelihood shocks. An analysis of siziphile land occupation of an abandoned safari ranch by communal area residents in south-western Lupane District, reveals the limitation and livelihood risks of such occupations. It shows how by extending farming activities into a safari ranch (which was hom…
Hustling Out of Unemployment
Youth unemployment has emerged as a major policy issue in the recent past. Within policy circles two solutions have been proposed: first, investing in youth education, and second, incorporating youth into agriculture. Our thesis, backed by a long history of proletarianisation, is that perceptions of work and agriculture, which have become deeply entrenched in society, tend to undermine any prospects of educated youth engaging in agriculture-based…
Who Becomes a Farmer
Farmer support systems, mainly by the state, have long been considered as central in the agricultural development in Zimbabwe. While this is partly true, the main contention of this paper is that such a perspective fails to grasp the complex relationship between proletarianization and rural agriculture, and the significance of the rural economy within the life course of rural households. The paper develops this argument by focusing on the experie…
Negotiating the Border
Based on an extended study of Zimbabwean women migrants in the Gauteng Province of South Africa, this article focuses on these women both as mothers and as labor migrants, seeking to understand their migration intentions in relation to changing policy and law in South Africa. It also focuses on their responses to the changes in policy as they seek to renegotiate the border. The strategies adopted by the women in negotiating the border not only de…
The Complexity of Contemporary Rural Society
Modernist assumptions have guided rural development interventions in Zimbabwe since the mid-twentieth century. As a result interventions were not firmly grounded on rural socio-economic and physical realities. The aim was not only to create a society of ‘modern’, ‘progressive farmers’ who followed a predetermined agricultural path, but also, the quest for order and modernity was clearly manifest through centralization measures and increased empha…
Mapping cassava food value chains in Tanzania's smallholder farming sector
Men on Transit' and the Rural 'Farmer Housewives
Studies on migrant-labour systems have focused on the negatives, particularly on women left behind as guardians of men's interests, but with no real control. My extended research on former migrant-labour societies in north-western Zimbabwe has challenged this 'doomsday' narrative. It did not only reveal the feminisation of household and societal decisions, but also how the migration of men has liberated women and allowed them to play crucial role…
Youth, agriculture and land reform in Zimbabwe
Three decades of land reform in Zimbabwe ended in an ambiguous victory for youth. Focus on the cumulative outcome, in terms of scale and scope, led to conclusions that the exercise was a success, which obscured the resultant forms of exclusion. This article attempts to sketch an analytical context in which the dynamics of Zimbabwe’s land reform may be understood. It focuses at the broader policy and societal levels, and investigates the socio-pol…
Defenders of the woods? Women and the complex dynamics of a worker-peasantry in western Zimbabwe
One winter morning in 2006, conflict ensued between firewood vendors (selling wood to passing motorists and also supplying bulk quantities to cities), on the one hand, and a group of predominantly women (and others sympathetic to their grievances), from villages on the southern fringes of the former Shangani Reserves in western Zimbabwe, on the other hand. The latter group confiscated firewood displayed for sale and stockpiles waiting for transpo…
Cultivating an agrarian middle class? Land reform, poverty reduction and social stratification in Southern Africa
In the past three decades, land reforms have dominated poverty and development policy debates in Southern Africa following the late attainment of independence of former settler colonies, and efforts to improve the efficiency of the agriculture sector in others. This article provides an analysis of land reforms in South Africa and Zimbabwe and proposed reforms under the new land laws in Lesotho. Based on these examples, it argues that prospects of…
Legacies of 'madiro'? Worker-peasantry, livelihood crisis and 'siziphile' land occupations in semi-arid north-western Zimbabwe
This paper examines acts of land 'self-provisioning' ('siziphile' land occupations) and 'radical land restitution' (of land previously annexed from people by the local authority for a pilot grazing project) by villagers in a communal area in Lupane District in north-western Zimbabwe. Situating these occurrences within the wider and historical context of 'madiro' (freedom farming and unauthorised development of settlements) and Matabeleland land p…
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
New Social Formations, Livelihood Transition, and Food Insecurity in Worker–Peasant Communities
In the immediate aftermath of Zimbabwe’s Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) experiment, radical changes that completely redefined life in rural areas appear to have taken place. The demise of the worker–peasantry was finally achieved. Using an extended case of worker–peasant communities in north-western Zimbabwe’s Lupane District, the article examines the changing dynamics in rural areas. It argues that the world on which the worker–pe…
Land Strategies and Livelihood Dynamics in Peri-urban Communities
This article explores land strategies and livelihoods dynamics in peri-urban communities in Maseru, Lesotho, and state policy on land and agriculture. Despite the restrictions imposed by the Land Act of 1979 on transaction of agricultural land, households engage in vernacular rural land sales and rental markets, and have converted agricultural land for alternative livelihoods. The article stresses the importance of households' behaviour in redefi…
Youth, agriculture and land reform in Zimbabwe
Three decades of land reform in Zimbabwe ended in an ambiguous victory for youth. Focus on the cumulative outcome, in terms of scale and scope, led to conclusions that the exercise was a success, which obscured the resultant forms of exclusion. This article attempts to sketch an analytical context in which the dynamics of Zimbabwe’s land reform may be understood. It focuses at the broader policy and societal levels, and investigates the socio-pol…
New realities’ and tenure reforms
This article1 1. In an attempt to understand new environments and to construct strategies of survival, new realities emerge in rural communities and replace what is generally considered as ideal by officials. The story of the Zimbabwean worker-peasantry is one of resilience. The worker-peasantry has refused to die in communal areas of Zimbabwe, even in the face of adversity and appears to be on the rise. This is a class with distinct land needs a…
Legacies of 'madiro'? Worker-peasantry, livelihood crisis and 'siziphile' land occupations in semi-arid north-western Zimbabwe
This paper examines acts of land 'self-provisioning' ('siziphile' land occupations) and 'radical land restitution' (of land previously annexed from people by the local authority for a pilot grazing project) by villagers in a communal area in Lupane District in north-western Zimbabwe. Situating these occurrences within the wider and historical context of 'madiro' (freedom farming and unauthorised development of settlements) and Matabeleland land p…
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
From South Africa with love
In the 1980s and early 1990s, sending remittances from South Africa posed major challenges for Ndebele migrants. As a result households receiving remittances only did so at irregular intervals. With increased diasporisation into South Africa, it was to be expected that new channels would open up. This article explores what is known as the malayisha system, its role and significance as an informal channel of remittances into Ndebele society. It ar…
Mapping cassava food value chains in Tanzania's smallholder farming sector
Men on Transit' and the Rural 'Farmer Housewives
Studies on migrant-labour systems have focused on the negatives, particularly on women left behind as guardians of men's interests, but with no real control. My extended research on former migrant-labour societies in north-western Zimbabwe has challenged this 'doomsday' narrative. It did not only reveal the feminisation of household and societal decisions, but also how the migration of men has liberated women and allowed them to play crucial role…
Who Becomes a Farmer
Farmer support systems, mainly by the state, have long been considered as central in the agricultural development in Zimbabwe. While this is partly true, the main contention of this paper is that such a perspective fails to grasp the complex relationship between proletarianization and rural agriculture, and the significance of the rural economy within the life course of rural households. The paper develops this argument by focusing on the experie…
Negotiating the Border
Based on an extended study of Zimbabwean women migrants in the Gauteng Province of South Africa, this article focuses on these women both as mothers and as labor migrants, seeking to understand their migration intentions in relation to changing policy and law in South Africa. It also focuses on their responses to the changes in policy as they seek to renegotiate the border. The strategies adopted by the women in negotiating the border not only de…
Land Strategies and Livelihood Dynamics in Peri-urban Communities
This article explores land strategies and livelihoods dynamics in peri-urban communities in Maseru, Lesotho, and state policy on land and agriculture. Despite the restrictions imposed by the Land Act of 1979 on transaction of agricultural land, households engage in vernacular rural land sales and rental markets, and have converted agricultural land for alternative livelihoods. The article stresses the importance of households' behaviour in redefi…
Changing Households Social Dynamics and Agriculture Crisis in Shamva District, Zimbabwe
This article explores household-level social dynamics of change and their causal effects on future agricultural practices and food security. It does this by employing a place-specific qualitative research methodology in two rural settlements in Shamva District, Mashonaland Central Province. It reveals how these changes have impacted negatively on farm households' command of assets, including draft power, labour and social networks. Households tha…
Siziphile Land Occupations, Wilderness Farming, Threat of the Wild and Livelihood Vulnerability in Western Lupane District
Land self-provisioning has been a strategy not only for land access for the landless, but also to rebuild or improve livelihoods for people recovering from livelihood shocks. An analysis of siziphile land occupation of an abandoned safari ranch by communal area residents in south-western Lupane District, reveals the limitation and livelihood risks of such occupations. It shows how by extending farming activities into a safari ranch (which was hom…
Hustling Out of Unemployment
Youth unemployment has emerged as a major policy issue in the recent past. Within policy circles two solutions have been proposed: first, investing in youth education, and second, incorporating youth into agriculture. Our thesis, backed by a long history of proletarianisation, is that perceptions of work and agriculture, which have become deeply entrenched in society, tend to undermine any prospects of educated youth engaging in agriculture-based…
New Social Formations, Livelihood Transition, and Food Insecurity in Worker–Peasant Communities
In the immediate aftermath of Zimbabwe’s Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) experiment, radical changes that completely redefined life in rural areas appear to have taken place. The demise of the worker–peasantry was finally achieved. Using an extended case of worker–peasant communities in north-western Zimbabwe’s Lupane District, the article examines the changing dynamics in rural areas. It argues that the world on which the worker–pe…
From South Africa with love
In the 1980s and early 1990s, sending remittances from South Africa posed major challenges for Ndebele migrants. As a result households receiving remittances only did so at irregular intervals. With increased diasporisation into South Africa, it was to be expected that new channels would open up. This article explores what is known as the malayisha system, its role and significance as an informal channel of remittances into Ndebele society. It ar…
New realities’ and tenure reforms
This article1 1. In an attempt to understand new environments and to construct strategies of survival, new realities emerge in rural communities and replace what is generally considered as ideal by officials. The story of the Zimbabwean worker-peasantry is one of resilience. The worker-peasantry has refused to die in communal areas of Zimbabwe, even in the face of adversity and appears to be on the rise. This is a class with distinct land needs a…
Land Strategies and Livelihood Dynamics in Peri-urban Communities
This article explores land strategies and livelihoods dynamics in peri-urban communities in Maseru, Lesotho, and state policy on land and agriculture. Despite the restrictions imposed by the Land Act of 1979 on transaction of agricultural land, households engage in vernacular rural land sales and rental markets, and have converted agricultural land for alternative livelihoods. The article stresses the importance of households' behaviour in redefi…
New Social Formations, Livelihood Transition, and Food Insecurity in Worker–Peasant Communities
In the immediate aftermath of Zimbabwe’s Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) experiment, radical changes that completely redefined life in rural areas appear to have taken place. The demise of the worker–peasantry was finally achieved. Using an extended case of worker–peasant communities in north-western Zimbabwe’s Lupane District, the article examines the changing dynamics in rural areas. It argues that the world on which the worker–pe…
Defenders of the woods? Women and the complex dynamics of a worker-peasantry in western Zimbabwe
One winter morning in 2006, conflict ensued between firewood vendors (selling wood to passing motorists and also supplying bulk quantities to cities), on the one hand, and a group of predominantly women (and others sympathetic to their grievances), from villages on the southern fringes of the former Shangani Reserves in western Zimbabwe, on the other hand. The latter group confiscated firewood displayed for sale and stockpiles waiting for transpo…
Cultivating an agrarian middle class? Land reform, poverty reduction and social stratification in Southern Africa
In the past three decades, land reforms have dominated poverty and development policy debates in Southern Africa following the late attainment of independence of former settler colonies, and efforts to improve the efficiency of the agriculture sector in others. This article provides an analysis of land reforms in South Africa and Zimbabwe and proposed reforms under the new land laws in Lesotho. Based on these examples, it argues that prospects of…
Legacies of 'madiro'? Worker-peasantry, livelihood crisis and 'siziphile' land occupations in semi-arid north-western Zimbabwe
This paper examines acts of land 'self-provisioning' ('siziphile' land occupations) and 'radical land restitution' (of land previously annexed from people by the local authority for a pilot grazing project) by villagers in a communal area in Lupane District in north-western Zimbabwe. Situating these occurrences within the wider and historical context of 'madiro' (freedom farming and unauthorised development of settlements) and Matabeleland land p…
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
The Complexity of Contemporary Rural Society
Modernist assumptions have guided rural development interventions in Zimbabwe since the mid-twentieth century. As a result interventions were not firmly grounded on rural socio-economic and physical realities. The aim was not only to create a society of ‘modern’, ‘progressive farmers’ who followed a predetermined agricultural path, but also, the quest for order and modernity was clearly manifest through centralization measures and increased empha…
Mapping cassava food value chains in Tanzania's smallholder farming sector
Men on Transit' and the Rural 'Farmer Housewives
Studies on migrant-labour systems have focused on the negatives, particularly on women left behind as guardians of men's interests, but with no real control. My extended research on former migrant-labour societies in north-western Zimbabwe has challenged this 'doomsday' narrative. It did not only reveal the feminisation of household and societal decisions, but also how the migration of men has liberated women and allowed them to play crucial role…
Youth, agriculture and land reform in Zimbabwe
Three decades of land reform in Zimbabwe ended in an ambiguous victory for youth. Focus on the cumulative outcome, in terms of scale and scope, led to conclusions that the exercise was a success, which obscured the resultant forms of exclusion. This article attempts to sketch an analytical context in which the dynamics of Zimbabwe’s land reform may be understood. It focuses at the broader policy and societal levels, and investigates the socio-pol…
Who Becomes a Farmer
Farmer support systems, mainly by the state, have long been considered as central in the agricultural development in Zimbabwe. While this is partly true, the main contention of this paper is that such a perspective fails to grasp the complex relationship between proletarianization and rural agriculture, and the significance of the rural economy within the life course of rural households. The paper develops this argument by focusing on the experie…
Negotiating the Border
Based on an extended study of Zimbabwean women migrants in the Gauteng Province of South Africa, this article focuses on these women both as mothers and as labor migrants, seeking to understand their migration intentions in relation to changing policy and law in South Africa. It also focuses on their responses to the changes in policy as they seek to renegotiate the border. The strategies adopted by the women in negotiating the border not only de…
Informal and Unserviceable
Siziphile Land Occupations, Wilderness Farming, Threat of the Wild and Livelihood Vulnerability in Western Lupane District
Land self-provisioning has been a strategy not only for land access for the landless, but also to rebuild or improve livelihoods for people recovering from livelihood shocks. An analysis of siziphile land occupation of an abandoned safari ranch by communal area residents in south-western Lupane District, reveals the limitation and livelihood risks of such occupations. It shows how by extending farming activities into a safari ranch (which was hom…
Hustling Out of Unemployment
Youth unemployment has emerged as a major policy issue in the recent past. Within policy circles two solutions have been proposed: first, investing in youth education, and second, incorporating youth into agriculture. Our thesis, backed by a long history of proletarianisation, is that perceptions of work and agriculture, which have become deeply entrenched in society, tend to undermine any prospects of educated youth engaging in agriculture-based…
The ‘nouveau riche’ and ‘makorokoza’
Living on the Periphery and Challenges of Mobility
Youth, Livelihoods, and Complex Realities in a Former Migrant Labour Reserve in North-western Zimbabwe
Basali ba lifemeng”
This article explores the low absorption of male labour in Lesotho’s textile industry. The research adopted a qualitative approach to interrogate dynamics in the industry and perspectives from social actors, including textile employees, key individuals and members of society. It revealed that the dynamics of change in the industry, particularly the technological leaps achieved by some factories, have created opportunities for men but have not nec…
Changing Households Social Dynamics and Agriculture Crisis in Shamva District, Zimbabwe
This article explores household-level social dynamics of change and their causal effects on future agricultural practices and food security. It does this by employing a place-specific qualitative research methodology in two rural settlements in Shamva District, Mashonaland Central Province. It reveals how these changes have impacted negatively on farm households' command of assets, including draft power, labour and social networks. Households tha…
Large Dam–Induced Displacements, Compensation and Conflicts
The Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase II (LHWP II) implementation in Mokhotlong district has generated bitter conflict between affected communities and the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA). This conflict has been explained in terms of dissatisfaction by affected communities over compensation. This article argues that the compensation question is complex and that the LHDA failed to appreciate the complexity of the issue. As a res…
The Paradox of Survival
Muzarabani district of Zimbabwe is plagued by chronic food insecurity, where households resort to various livelihood strategies to cope with economic adversity. This study examines the paradoxical nature of these strategies, as they can have both positive and negative impacts on household food security. The research explores how the context, shocks, assets, institutions, activities and strategies of rural households in Muzarabani interact to shap…
When the cross-border remittance system fails
Cross-border remittances from South Africa have played a central role in the food availability and well-being of migrant labour households in semi-arid Zimbabwe. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and containment measures introduced by both the South African and Zimbabwean governments hampered the cross-border remittance system and the movement of goods. This paper explores the food provisioning and availability impacts of the changes…
Economics (22 works) · Political science (22 works) · Economic growth (20 works) · Geography (20 works) · African studies and sociopolitical issues (18 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Agriculture (16 works) · African history and culture studies (11 works) · Land Rights and Reforms (11 works) · Livelihood (11 works)