Immigrants, 'Traditional' Leaders and the Rhodesian State
The Power of 'Communal' Land Tenure and the Politics of Land Acquisition in Gokwe, Zimbabwe, 1963-1979
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4604265 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pius S Nyambara (0000-0003-0471-3596, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 771-791 |
| Publication date | 2001-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03057070120090736 |
| OpenAlex | W2026389533 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 29 |
| References cited | 24 |
In 1962, largely as a result of African opposition, the Rhodesia state abandoned the Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA), which had regulated land use and land allocation in the African areas since the early 1950s. The NLHA was replaced by the Tribal Trust Land Act (1967) through which the colonial state began to emphasise the power of 'communal' land tenure, in part to deal with land shortages in the African areas, but also to ward off the rising tide of African nationalism. Recent writings have suggested that in pre-colonial and colonial Zimbabwe there was never a unified system of tenure that could be labelled 'traditional' or 'communal'. This article builds upon these recent critiques by examining the historical processes of land acquisition and access in the frontier region of Gokwe. The article suggests that 'communal' tenure, far from being the system that the colonial state envisaged, was a terrain for a complex interplay of factors. 'Communal' tenure must be located at the juncture of different ideologies including those of state-imposed legal codes and of the various interpretations of 'custom' that individuals advanced in defence of their claims to land. A comprehensive understanding of the process of land acquisition and access can only be gained by focusing on these different ideologies
Agriculture · Archaeology · Colonialism · Customary land · Frontier · Geography · Ideology · Land law · Land tenure · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State formation · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Land Rights and Reforms · Law
African Roads to Prosperity
Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe
The Fast Track Land Reform Programme and its effect on the loss of forests
Kalanga culture and the nature of resistance against the Native Land Husbandry Act of 1951 in colonial Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform
Rethinking Citizens and Democracy
The Global Politics of African Identity
Beyond informality
Land Grab’ or ‘Taking Back Stolen Land’
Who Becomes a Farmer
A gendered analysis of land reforms in Zimbabwe
The Mystery of Capital Formation in Sub-Saharan Africa
When the cross-border remittance system fails
The Historiography of Land in Zimbabwe
Policy and praxis of land acquisition in China
Democratisation and control
From an Industrial Powerhouse to a Nation of Vendors
This is Our land’
Legacies of 'madiro'? Worker-peasantry, livelihood crisis and 'siziphile' land occupations in semi-arid north-western Zimbabwe
On the Edge of the Law
Communal Tenure and Rural Poverty
Forbidden But Not Suppressed
Marginal Gains, Market Values, and History
The Political Economy of Zimbabwe's Communal Land (1890-2024)
After 'Siziphile' Land Occupations
Men on Transit' and the Rural 'Farmer Housewives
Culture, politics and material landscaping as strategies of belonging
Is it Lawful for People to have their Things taken away by Force?'1 High Modernism and Ungovernability in Colonial Zimbabwe
Whatever It Takes
Guns and rain
Violence & memory
No Condition Is Permanent
The Invention of Tradition Revisited
The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa
Zimbabwe's Guerrilla War
Kenyan Communities in the Age of Imperialism
Agrarian Change from above
Changing patterns of population distribution in Zimbabwe
Public Administration and Development
Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-Century Africa
Rethinking the reserves
Violence and Memory
The Native Land Husbandry Act of 1951 and the Rural African Middle Class of Southern Rhodesia
Land in African Agrarian Systems
Modernity and ethnicity in a frontier society
Competition and Integration in the Religious History of North-Western Zimbabwe
Christians and Chiefs in Zimbabwe
The Moral Economy of the State
Tradition and Travesty
The ideology of 'communal' land tenure in Zimbabwe
The Rhodesian Chief's Dilemma
| Unique citing works | 29 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,38 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2025 (21) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 25 |