Peasant Agency in a Changing Agrarian Situation in Central Zimbabwe: The Case of Mhondoro Ngezi

Introduction

The outcomes of Zimbabwe’s Fast-Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP), characterized by the occupation of white-owned commercial farms by landless peasants in 2000, were until recently highly contested (Chaumba, Scoones & Wolmer, 2003; Hammar, Rapfopoulos & Jensen, 2003; Hanlon, Jeanette & Teresa, 2012; Matondi, 2012; Moyo et al., 2009; Scoones et al., 2010). ¹ One of the major criticisms of the FTLRP was that it largely benefited supporters of the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) (Hammar, Rapfopoulos & Jensen 2003), while theories of neo-patrimonialism were invoked to highlight how land beneficiaries were ‘clients’ of a patrimonial state (Zamchiya, 2011). Although claims of corruption and nepotism during the land reform cannot be simply dismissed, they fail to provide a complete picture of what was obtained on the ground. Most importantly, such claims downplay the agency of landless peasants, in terms of their ability to instrumentalize ‘weapons of the weak’ to access land and other natural resources during the implementation of the FTLRP. ² Empirical data gathered in Mhondoro Ngezi show that peasants were not passive victims of a changing agrarian situation but deployed various tactics, such as faking membership of ZANU-PF, in order to access land and other livelihood opportunities. Being a member of ‘ZANU-PF’ must thus be treated as a relative concept, deployed by people at various moments of the land reform. Peasant agency transcended ‘performing ZANU-PF’, as it also involved other ‘everyday forms of resistance’ (Scott, 1985), including the illegal extension of plots beyond the official boundaries marked by authorities, illegal extraction of natural resources and other acts of sabotage such as poaching of wild game and other fauna and flora during the land reform.

Although it might be difficult to generalize on the basis of the Mhondoro Ngezi case study presented in this article, it demonstrates the agency of land seekers which is often ignored in the literature on Zimbabwe’s land reform. The article utilizes James Scott’s (1985) concept of ‘weapons of the weak’ to demonstrate peasant agency and resistance during a changing agrarian situation in Zimbabwe. The article is based on ethnographic data gathered with 185 newly resettled peasant farmers (A1 farmers, according to the Government of Zimbabwe farm categories) in Mhondoro Ngezi district. ³

Peasant Agency and Resistance: Contested Debates

In his seminal book, Scott (1985) argued that studies of peasant resistance tended to focus on peasant revolutions and rebellions, despite the fact that there are very few peasant rebellions or uprisings recorded in history. According to Scott (1986, p. 1), the ‘emphasis on peasant rebellion is misplaced’, and it is far more important to examine what he calls ‘everyday forms of peasant resistance—the prosaic but constant struggle between the peasantry and those who seek to extract labour, food, taxes, rents and interest from them’. This form of peasant struggle, involves inter alia ‘ordinary weapons of the relatively powerless groups’ such as ‘foot dragging, dissimulation, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage’ (ibid., p. 1). Scott’s ‘weapons of the weak’ concept provides an important contribution to the study of ‘invisible’ forms of peasant resistance which tended to be ignored in the literature.

However, it has also triggered ongoing debates about how to conceptualize ‘everyday forms of peasant resistance’ without romanticizing such resistance. Some scholars have argued that the concept of ‘weapons of the weak’ makes it difficult to know ‘what is or is not resistance’ (Ortner, 1995, p. 175). Moreover, Abu-Lughod (1995, p. 41) has argued that studies of resistance that focus on ‘unconventional’ forms of ‘non-collective and non-organised’ resistance have led to the ‘romance of resistance’, which is more concerned with ‘finding resistors and explaining resistance than examining power’. Instead, she argues that there must ‘be a shift in perspective in the way we look at resistance, by using resistance as a diagnostic of power’. Similarly, Sherry Ortner (1995, p. 177) has argued that most of the influential studies of resistance ‘are severely limited by the lack of “ethnographic thickness” and the “absence of politics”’; she further argues that ‘if we are to recognise that resistors are doing more than simply opposing domination, more than simply producing a virtually mechanical re-action we need to go the whole way’, as the resistors have ‘their own politics—not just between chiefs and commoners or landlords and peasants but within all the local categories of friction and tension’. Scott (1986, p. 4) himself warned against overly romanticizing weapons of the weak as they ‘are unlikely to do more than marginally affect the various forms of exploitation which peasants confront’ and that ‘the peasantry has no monopoly on these weapons, as anyone who has observed officials and landlords resisting and disrupting state policies which are to their disadvantage can easily attest’.

Despite these contested debates, the concept of ‘weapons of the weak’ provides important analytical lenses to explore how peasant agency and resistance unfolded in a changing agrarian situation in Zimbabwe. The Mhondoro Ngezi case study explored in this article contributes to these ongoing debates by utilizing ethnographic data to show how peasants have utilized ‘everyday forms of resistance’ in order to access land and other livelihood opportunities during a changing agrarian situation. These invisible forms of peasant resistance have so far received limited attention in the literature on Zimbabwe’s FTLRP.

This study explores how people accessed land in Mhondoro Ngezi during FTLRP and the political dynamics that shaped such a process. This will be followed by an analysis of how ‘weapons of the weak’ were instrumentalized by land seekers during the implementation of the FTLRP. The article concludes by highlighting the need for scholars to explore the way in which peasants utilize their agency to gain access to land and other livelihood opportunities during a changing agrarian situation.

Who Benefited from Land and How Did they Access It?

People who were resettled at the former Damvuri Conservancy in Mhondoro Ngezi are not by any means a homogeneous group. They can be grouped into three broad categories based on where they came from. First, there are those who came from the low lying areas of Sanyati and Gokwe who constitute the majority (approximately 60%) of the land beneficiaries at Damvuri. Second, there are the former residents of the nearby Mhondoro Communal Area (CA) and the old resettlement areas within the vicinity. Third, there are those from the gold and platinum mines in the broader Mhondoro Ngezi area, the urban areas of Kadoma, Kwekwe and Chegutu, and former farmworkers from the Damvuri conservancy and other former large-scale commercial farms (LSCF) in the area.

However, it is important to highlight that, as land reform was a process rather than a one-off event, some people who may belong to the same category above acquired land at different moments of the land reform process. Some were the so-called ‘pioneers’, who joined the initial war veteran-led occupation in 2000, while others came later during the planning phase, after 2004. Moreover, these broad categories consist of people of different age groups, gender, social, and economic backgrounds. It is also important to highlight that women were allocated land in their own right. This was especially the case for widows and other unmarried women who joined land occupations. Those who were married but whose husbands were either working in cities or in the diaspora were also allocated land, and their names appear on the land ‘Offer Letter’. ⁴

The way people joined the land occupations at the Damvuri Conservancy varied depending on their place of origin. Those who came from areas further away from the Mhondoro Ngezi district, such as Sanyati and Gokwe, mostly followed a rather formal process by registering their interest in land either through local war veterans or the ZANU-PF local branch in their place of origin. Such people then organized themselves into groups and travelled to the town of Kadoma where they camped at the District Administrator’s (DA) office for ‘processing’, before being transported to the Damvuri Conservancy. Such a process took days or weeks before people were finally resettled. Those who were already on the waiting list were contacted by the DA’s office and allocated land.

Those who came from areas near the Damvuri Conservancy such as residents of the Mhondoro Ngezi CA, old resettlement areas in Mhondoro Ngezi district, former farmworkers, urbanites and miners simply joined the war veterans who had occupied the conservancy and, thereafter, formally registered their interest in land. Due to the bureaucratic nature of land occupations in Mhondoro Ngezi, those who joined the occupation directly were also registered with the DA’s office in Kadoma before they were allocated land.

The analysis below focuses on how people in these broad categories came to join land occupations at the Damvuri Conservancy and how people in various categories deployed various tactics to enhance their chances of accessing land. Land seekers often had to manoeuvre around a raft of political, bureaucratic, class and gender-based bottlenecks, in order to gain access to land.

Former Mhondoro Ngezi Communal Area Residents

The Mhondoro Ngezi CA was a labour reserve situated in an area surrounded by white-owned LSCFs endowed with the bulk of the best land surrounding the CA alienated for European use during the colonial era. ⁵ Africans were squeezed into an area of predominantly poor course grained sands with limited subsoil drainage. The soil structure in the area leads to a seasonal perched water table characterized by high levels of acidity and low base saturation, which impedes soil fertility and drainage (Andersen et al., 1993).

The Mhondoro Ngezi CA borders the former white-owned LSCFs, within which the Damvuri Conservancy is located. People from the CA that were resettled at the conservancy came from the territories of chiefs Nyika, Benhura, and Ngezi, within the Mhondoro Ngezi CA. The three chiefs did not directly participate in land occupations. Of the three of them, only Chief Nyika acquired an A2 plot (commercial farm) at the former Rock Bar Ranch, located on the southern part of the Damvuri Conservancy. However, the three chiefs have made territorial claims over the former LSCF areas opened up by the FTLRP process. In this context, there was no single motivating factor which influenced people in this group to join the land occupations. Informants in this category cited overcrowding, poor soils and the need for better pasture for livestock as reasons for joining the land occupations. However, the majority of informants cited the recovery of ancestral lands lost during the colonial-era forced removals as a major factor. Due to the close proximity of the Mhondoro Ngezi CA to the former white-owned LSCFs, such people historically believed that these were their ancestral lands alienated for European use during the colonial era, although such claims are contested by others.

The poor ecological soil structure of the CA contrasts significantly with the former white farms nearby, where better soils and ecological conditions suited for both crop production and livestock production predominate. This contrast in the agro-ecological potential of the two areas and increasing overpopulation and ecological degradation in CAs was a major source of grievances among the former residents of the Mhondoro Ngezi CA. Such people resented the fact that while they were overcrowded in an ecologically degraded CA, the neighbouring white farms had large tracts of land which were visibly underutilized.

Historically, Africans from the Mhondoro Ngezi CA deployed ‘weapons of the weak’ as forms of resistance and diversification of livelihoods, given the socio-economic and ecological conditions obtained in CAs. Such acts included illegally grazing their livestock in white-owned farms, poaching of game and other acts of sabotage such as cutting the game perimeter fence and snaring of wild animals. These ‘illegal’ activities generally strained the relationship between Africans in the Mhondoro Ngezi CA and their white neighbours in the nearby commercial farms. The ecological crises facing people in the CA and grievances against white landowners were crucial to the way people in this group joined the land occupations in 2000. According to interviews with informants, the killing of a CA resident by a white farmer on suspicion of poaching wildlife on his land is believed to have triggered the land occupations in the area in 2000.

Interviews with informants provided below highlight why and how people joined the farm occupations and from where they came. ⁶

Mr J. Machikiche (interviewed at Damvuri on 21 June 2010) came from Mamina in Chief Benhura’s territory in the Mhondoro Ngezi CA. He and his wife came to the Damvuri Conservancy in 2002 and were allocated a plot in Village 7:

We came from Mhondoro Mamina in 2002; we did not have a piece of land to grow our own crops. During the liberation struggle we relocated to Lusaka in Zambia. We came back to Zimbabwe in 1980 and we had no land. We stayed at someone else’s place. In Mhondoro Ngezi, the small plot we owned barely produced five bags of maize, but now we produce many tonnes of maize. When we heard about availability of land at Damvuri, we went to register our names at the local ZANU-PF office in Mamina. After registering we were told to go to Damvuri where we were allocated a plot.

Mrs Changi (interviewed at Damvuri on 18 June 2010) came from Chief Nyika’s territory in Mhondoro Ngezi. She and her husband joined the occupation in 2000 in the early stages of the fast-track land reforms and were allocated a plot in Village 8:

We came from Bhururu in Mhondoro Ngezi in 2000. We were part of the very few people who joined land occupations at the beginning. When we came here we did not completely give up our home in the Mhondoro CA. We wanted to be sure that this place was going to be secure enough before we completely gave up our home. In any case, we still have relatives back there. The soils in Mhondoro were bad and unproductive. We also had three sons who needed land to start their own families. Our land back home was too small for a growing family. We were attracted by the good soils and rainfall patterns in the area. We also liked the plentiful pasture available here where our livestock can graze freely, unlike in Mhondoro CA where there is hardly any pasture for livestock.

Mrs Mangwiro (interviewed at Damvuri on 17 June 2010) came from Muchemwa in Chief Benhura’s territory in the Mhondoro CA. She and her husband joined the occupation in 2002 and were allocated land in Village 7:

We came to from Muchemwa in Chief Benhura’s territory in Mhondoro Ngezi; we came here after people told us that there was land. The soils back there were tired. The place is overcrowded. This land belonged to our ancestors; white farmers were sitting on good quality land while we were stuck with poor soils. We came to recover our land. Before we came here we registered with the DA in Kadoma and were offered a plot. This place has plentiful grazing pastures and more opportunities to do other things. Coming here was not very difficult since it is close to our place of origin. We used scotch carts to carry our belongings. We still have part of our family back in the communal areas although we gave up our plot.

These biographies highlight people’s backgrounds and their motivations for seeking land. They also demonstrate that the need for better quality land and pasture were some of the reasons for joining the land occupations. Due to the close proximity of the Mhondoro Ngezi CA to the Damvuri Conservancy, it was generally easy for people to relocate. However, the relocation was staggered; men generally moved to Damvuri first, and women and children remained behind but followed later when the basic facilities were in place. There were various reasons why people in this category kept their CA homes. First, it was a way of hedging for land in new areas and also maintaining their traditional homes as a security precaution. Second, some families sought to address the pressure for land in the CA by securing plots for their sons in the newly resettled area. Thus, some people in this category did not relocate to the new area; instead, such plots are being utilized by relatives, some of whom were squatting on land.

Others, particularly the elderly people, were reluctant to completely abandon their homes since starting a new home was a laborious process requiring a big investment in manual labour. This process entailed clearing the virgin land and building new infrastructure, such as houses, cattle pens and granaries. Moreover, such people had heavily invested in their CA homes; they had built ‘modern’ looking bungalows and sanitary facilities, such as toilets, which they were reluctant to leave behind. Elderly people tended to have a strong sense of belonging to their old community where graves of ancestors were located and hence such graves could not be simply left behind. Moreover, maintaining land rights in both places was also a way of ‘beating the system’, as newly occupied areas such as the Damvuri Conservancy were deemed ‘contested’ areas by international donors and food relief organizations and were thus excluded from their projects. Maintaining a CA home meant that one could access donor assistance directly or indirectly through family members who remained looking after the old homesteads. Thus, such donor services indirectly found their way to newly resettled areas through family networks. Availability of some social services and/or infrastructure in the CAs was another reason for people’s reluctance to relocate to newly resettled areas and to maintain the CA homestead.

In general, people in this category did not have to sacrifice large amounts of resources in terms of logistics, as it was easy for them simply to walk or use ox-drawn carts to transport their belongings to the newly resettled area. Moreover, such people were familiar with the ecological landscape in the occupied area and thus required less time to adjust, as it was relatively close to their place of origin.

Gokwe and Sanyati ‘Returnees’

Despite the relatively long distance between Gokwe and Mhondoro Ngezi district, people in this group constitute the majority of the people resettled at the Damvuri Conservancy. But why and how did people in this category come to join the land occupations in Mhondoro Ngezi, an area which is located over 200 kilometres away, rather than occupy farms closer to their places of origin? Various reasons were cited by informants in this category as to why they ended up at the Damvuri Conservancy in Mhondoro Ngezi District. First, they claimed to have a historical connection with the area, as they were part of a group of people who were forcibly evicted from the former Rhodesdale estate by the colonial government in the 1960s. Second, some of them reported that they were attracted by better quality land and the prospect of alternative livelihoods, such as gold panning and working as wage labourers across gold and platinum mines located in the area.

But how did these people come to the Damvuri Conservancy, given the long distance between the two locations? In terms of logistics, coming to the Mhondoro Ngezi area was not necessarily easy for them. The long distance meant that they had to invest relatively large sums of money and time to move families after securing plots. This made it much more expensive to straddle between Gokwe and the newly occupied area in order to spread risks. As a result, whole families moved rather than splitting, as in the case of those in the Mhondoro Ngezi category. Moreover, the remoteness of Gokwe meant that there was hardly any transport to the area, since many public transport operators had been forced out of business due to severe fuel shortages which were experienced across Zimbabwe after 2000. Unlike their counterparts from the Mhondoro Ngezi CA, they were under much more pressure to gain access to land due to the fact that the overcrowding and land degradation experienced in Gokwe in the 1990s left many of them with limited options for alternative livelihood strategies. The cotton boom of the post-independence era, which had attracted many immigrants from other parts of Zimbabwe, had all but collapsed by the late 1990s. The situation was further worsened by recurrent droughts, which led to frequent crop failure and low yields. Moreover, the skyrocketing inflation and the general slump in cotton prices undermined the peasant economy and forced people to look for alternative livelihoods elsewhere. The interviews provided below highlight why people left Gokwe and Sanyati in search of land in Mhondoro Ngezi and the logistics involved in such a process. ⁷

Mr Madheu (interviewed at Damvuri on 24 October 2010) came to Damvuri from Chief Lozane’s area of Sanyati in 2000. He was allocated a plot in Village 7:

I came from Sanyati in 2000, my parents were born in Rhodesdale in this area but were forcibly relocated to Gokwe by white settlers in the 1950s. We were cotton farmers in the Sanyati area. My father had ten children. In the beginning it was easier to grow crops, but it increasingly became difficult as the soil became infertile; droughts which led to successive poor harvest affected us. Moreover, our family grew in size and the demand for better quality land increased. I used to work in a supermarket at the Gokwe centre as a cashier but lost the job in 1998. I did not have land of my own, so my wife and I stayed with my parents. However, it was not easy to continue living with parents since I got married and had my own kids. The family homestead became congested; there was no land for all of us. I had one cow, which I sold in order for us to move here. I initially registered with Kadoma District Council in 1999 to be resettled and my name was put on a waiting list. I wanted to get land in this area because this is where my parents originally came from. My father used to talk about availability of land here, good soils and rainfall and other natural resources. In early 2000, I got a letter from Kadoma Rural Council informing me that a new farm had been opened up for resettlement. I joined a group of people and we camped at the Kadoma Rural District Council Offices before we organized transport to come here in March 2000.

Mr Mafamashizha (interviewed at Damvuri on 24 October 2010) came from Chief Nembudziya’s territory in Gokwe in 2000. He was allocated a plot in Village 6:

We came from Nembudziya. My grandfather was born in Rhodesdale, but was forcibly moved to Sanyati in 1952. He then moved to Nembudziya to get better land for cotton growing. I grew up there although I left to work at Empress Mine in 1994. I am the first born in a family of 15 children since my father was a polygamist. I had a piece of land of my own and used to grow a variety of crops. I was doing well in Gokwe because I used to harvest a lot of cotton and made good money. This changed in the late 1990s when it became difficult to grow cotton since we had no money to buy chemicals and other farm implements. The market for cotton became so bad that it was not worth it. The major problem with Gokwe was that it is a dry area which suffers periodic droughts. Moreover, as a result of changing climate, the droughts increased in intensity which made life difficult for many farmers. In some years, we had no water for consumption and for our livestock. I joined others who had registered their names with war veterans in order to be resettled. We used an army truck to come to Kadoma to join others who were waiting to come to Damvuri. We were brought here after some days of camping in Kadoma at the DA’s office where our names were registered.

The interviews captured above provide a picture of people’s socio-economic situation before they moved from Gokwe and Sanyati. They also reflect changing livelihood trajectories associated with climate change and the ‘boom and bust’ cotton economy of Gokwe, which forced people to seek better land elsewhere. There are three fundamental characteristics of people in this group which are worth mentioning. First, the people in this group took bigger risks in order to gain access to land in Mhondoro Ngezi, given the long distances between the two locations. Second, the remote location of Gokwe meant that people had to invest relatively large amounts of resources in order to move their families and property at a time when transport was generally difficult to organize due to shortages of fuel. Third, the long distance between Gokwe and the newly occupied area made it difficult to straddle between the two locations in order to spread risks and to utilize family connections in terms of labour and other social support mechanisms.

Another important logistical dynamic highlighted by informants during interviews was the fact that people in this category had to undertake many tasks simultaneously, such as clearing the land and building houses and cattle pens, as families had to be moved all at once due to transport costs. Some of the tasks, such as building houses and planting crops, had to be undertaken concurrently, given the fact that some people moved just before the rainy season. It was generally difficult for them to leave some of their family members behind as a risk-aversion strategy, given the long distance between the newly resettled area and their places of origin. This meant that they did not enjoy the support of their relatives and social networks like their counterparts from the Mhondoro Ngezi CA. An important social characteristic of this group is that a large number of them claim an autochthonous connection with the Mhondoro Ngezi area. During interviews and informal conversations, informants in this category tended to conceptualize the FTLRP as a form of land restitution, since it had allowed them to recover ancestral lands lost during the colonial era.

Farm Workers, Urbanites and Mine Workers

There has been a general tendency in the literature on Zimbabwe’s land reform (Hammar, McGregor & Landau, 2010; Rutherford, 2001) to take away agency from farmworkers by projecting them as passive victims of a changing agrarian structure who have become internally displaced people as a result of the land reform. Empirical evidence on the ground (AIAS Survey, 2014; Chambati, 2011; Chambati & Magaramombe, 2008) suggests that farmworkers were active participants in the politics of land rather than mere victims, and that, in some places, such as the Damvuri Conservancy, former farmworkers benefited from the land reform and have become key members of the newly-resettled community. Land reform provided farmworkers with an opportunity to gain access to land and other assets such as livestock and equipment, which their former employer could not take away. These assets gave the farmworkers a form of start-up capital to begin their new life as peasant farmers. There is a need to disaggregate farmworkers in terms of citizenship and geographical location, since lumping them into one group masks variations in their socio-economic circumstances and, hence, their ability to deal with the changing agrarian structure. For example, disaggregating the farmworker category helps us to understand variations in the way they were affected by land occupations. During the land reform, some farmworkers were better off than others and had the means to hedge against the risks associated with land reform. Some were highly skilled and were able to acquire land and are now part of the agrarian elite, whereas some were more vulnerable than others, especially the female and migrant farmworkers (Moyo et al., 2009). Former farmworkers of foreign origin were much more vulnerable, since losing jobs meant that they were likely to become homeless as they did not have land rights in CAs. However, local farmworkers had the option to simply go back to their CAs where they had homes and land (Scoones et al., 2010). These variations in farmworkers’ circumstances require a more nuanced analysis in order to better understand the impact of the changing agrarian situation on their livelihoods.

It is important to highlight that the fate of farmworkers was largely determined by local political dynamics that underpinned the occupation of individual farms. There were variations in the way in which a farm was occupied (Scoones et al., 2010). In some places, farmworkers fought pitched battles with war veterans in defence of their employer and, hence, their livelihoods. In other places, a farm occupation was initiated by farmworkers with the help of war veterans; and in other places, farmworkers were evicted together with their former employer, especially if they refused to support war veterans, or were suspected of being anti-ZANU-PF.

The experience of farmworkers in Mhondoro Ngezi was largely influenced by the relatively peaceful transfer of the occupied land to the government for redistribution and the intervention of their former employer who was able to lobby the DA to give them land after he left. Farmworkers were thus not victims of the land reform process as witnessed elsewhere but emerged better-off, as they had no land of their own before and relied on wage employment for their livelihoods. Although the farmworkers lost jobs as a result of land reform, those interviewed during fieldwork were happy to have been allocated land and the fact that they were no longer bonded at the farm as labourers with no land of their own. A few biographies provided below highlight the situation of farm workers at the Damvuri Conservancy during the reform process.

Mr Mutanga (interviewed at Damvuri on 23 September 10) came from Zambia in the 1970s and worked at the Damvuri Conservancy as manager until its occupation by war veterans in 2000. He had this to say about his experience:

I came from Zambia as an immigrant. I used to work for the elder Lewis before he died and then I worked for his son Owain who inherited the Damvuri farm, which he converted into a conservancy in the 1980s. Working for a white farmer was always a challenge, as the wages were always low. As a manager, I enjoyed certain benefits, such as access to small loans, a small plot to grow crops. I also had better accommodation compared to my subordinates. When land occupations occurred we were nervous that war veterans were going to evict us. However, the involvement of ZANU-PF politicians and the DA in Kadoma protected us. We were allocated land like everyone else, despite the fact that some of us are of foreign origin. I am happy with the land reform process, now I have land of my own and have somewhere to call home.

John Mabheka (interviewed at Damvuri on 23 September 2010) came from Mhondoro Ngezi in Chief Nyika’s territory. He used to work as a game ranger at the Damvuri Conservancy until the land occupations in 2000. He had this to say about the land reform process:

I came from the local area in the nearby Mhondoro Ngezi CA. I worked as a game ranger here for five years. The white owner of this farm was a temperamental guy who was very unpredictable. Working for him was always a challenge. He was not always bad as he would give us meat during the hunting season. I also used to get tips from hunting tourists which provided a bit of extra income. However, working for a white landowner meant that we did not get good wages. The little money I got I sent it back to my wife in the communal areas where she paid school fees for our kids and bought food. I was happy when war veterans came here. I wanted land here as it is more fertile than the land in the Mhondoro Reserve. Without land reform I could still be working for peanuts.

The interviews provided above show how the land reform in Mhondoro Ngezi allowed former farmworkers to access land. They also highlight that farmworkers received subsistence wages which did not meet their needs, thus they welcomed the land reform process despite the job losses. According to these former workers, the impact of losing jobs was minimal, given the fact that they benefited from gaining land as they now owned plots. Moreover, such former farmworkers are now more mobile and able to pursue other alternative livelihoods when farming is not viable, as they are now free.

Data from the Mhondoro Ngezi case study demonstrate that the FTLRP provided vulnerable groups, such as farmworkers and wage labourers of foreign origin, with an opportunity to own a piece of land. Such land provided them with a musha (home) where they could live an independent life as peasant farmers rather than rely on wage labour alone for their livelihoods. The experience of farmworkers and other landless groups in Mhondoro Ngezi contrasts significantly with trends observed elsewhere, where a more violent standoff and takeover of farms resulted in farmworker displacement. The Mhondoro Ngezi experience highlights that farmworkers were not only victims of the land reform process but utilized whatever opportunities at their disposal to gain access to land during a changing agrarian situation.

Were Beneficiaries of the Land Reform ZANU-PF Supporters?

One of the claims made by critics of Zimbabwe’s FTLRP was that it mainly benefited so-called ‘ZANU-PF cronies’ (Hammar, Rapfopoulos & Jensen, 2003; Zamchiya, 2011). While this claim cannot be simply dismissed, the situation on the ground was rather nuanced, making sweeping generalizations difficult to sustain. There is a near global agreement among scholars that access to the more lucrative A2 (commercial farms) required political connections (Matondi, 2012; Moyo et al., 2009; Scoones et al., 2010), however the situation was rather different with the A1 sector. Interviews with resettled farmers in Mhondoro Ngezi show that although land seekers often instrumentalized ZANU-PF membership as a way of gaining access to land, or protecting themselves from political violence during the land occupations, such people cannot simply be labelled ‘ZANU-PF cronies’. Such a categorization is problematic as the situation on the ground was rather complicated.

During fieldwork conducted for this study in Mhondoro Ngezi, the question ‘are you a member of ZANU-PF or not’ seemed to surprise the research informants. This was because, to most of them, the concept of being ZANU-PF was rather relative. People did not attach a lot of meaning to their ZANU-PF membership beyond its utility in allowing them access to land. As one of my informants remarked, ‘it is common sense to be a member ZANU-PF for the simple reason that if you are perceived not to be a member, your chances of getting land are slim’ (Mr Chikonzi, interviewed on 20 November 2010). As such, ZANU-PF membership was ‘performed’ out of necessity, as anyone who joined the party had their own specific motivations. This means that ZANU-PF membership must be treated as relative, as it is difficult to prove if one is a genuine member or not. Among the informants were people who were outwardly ZANU-PF but also secretly confessed to belong to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), or did not belong to any political party. Others carried the ZANU-PF party card and attended political party meetings, although they did not attach much value to their membership beyond its utility. Some argued that political parties were not that important beyond gaining access to land or farm inputs; such people viewed attending political gatherings as detrimental to their farm activities. Below is a summary of biographies gathered during fieldwork which demonstrates the instrumentality of ZANU-PF membership during the land reform:

Mr Sibananda (interviewed at Damvuri on 23 October 2010) was a former soldier in Zimbabwe’s national army, having retired in 2005. He was stationed in Bulawayo where he owned a house in the Mpopoma Township. After retirement, he wanted to start farming and thus was allocated an A1 plot at Damvuri:

I am originally from Mhondoro Ngezi, although I lived in Bulawayo where I worked and own a house. My brother organised a plot for me here. I came in 2003, and was offered a plot in Village. ⁸ As a former member of the army, I was given a plot because I am a war veteran. However, I was not necessarily a member of ZANU-PF, although I registered and carry a card. In 2006, I ran into trouble for not attending ZANU-PF meetings; many people suspected me of not supporting ZANU-PF, the DA threatened to evict me from the plot if I did not prove my commitment to ZANU-PF. I went to the DA and argued that no one could question my party credentials, I fought in the DRC war and went to war during the armed struggle. I successfully defended myself, although I am not really a supporter of ZANU-PF. As a soldier, I support the land reform but I don’t support ZANU-PF, I just carry a card for political protection.

Mr Chimuti (interviewed at Damvuri on 23 October 2010) came from Gokwe in 2003; he and another group of land seekers came through the DA’s office in Kadoma. He was allocated a plot at Village 3:

I came from Gokwe where I was born, we heard about the availability of land in Kadoma and decided to come here. We were brought here by the army; at that time of Jambanja, 8 one needed to be ZANU-PF to gain access to land. Since we were land seekers we made sure that we had our ZANU-PF membership cards. I had never been a member of ZANU-PF but through the land reform I joined. In fact, I would say that all people who joined Jambanja became members. But don’t get me wrong, being a genuine member is another question altogether. I joined because I wanted land. The question of being a genuine member or not is irrelevant. As long as I have land I don’t care about political parties.

Mr Mhande (interviewed at Damvuri on 24 October 2010) came from the town of Kadoma near Damvuri. He used to work for the state-owned electricity company as a meter reader. In 2000, he was allocated a plot at Village 7:

I used to work for the government. We were the first people to come here. We forced the white farmer to move from this farm and were involved in pegging the plots before the government came to officialise them. Everyone here is ZANU-PF but not in the sense of being die-hard supporters. It’s a practical decision to be ZANU-PF. We do not necessarily agree with everything ZANU-PF does, we support ZANU-PF because it gave us land and farming inputs. Although one can say everybody is ZANU-PF here, this does not mean there are no people who support other political parties. For example, our local councillor is known to be an MDC supporter, but is a ZANU-PF councillor. This means that even MDC people carry ZANU-PF cards and hold positions in ZANU-PF structures. Besides, how do you prove if a person is ZANU-PF or not? If you carry a card and attend meetings you are ZANU-PF even if you are MDC.

The interviews provided above demonstrate peasant agency in manipulating political party identities to gain access to land. However, they also show how problematic it is to place people in rigid political categories. People viewed ZANU-PF membership as instrumental to their needs as new farmers. They used such membership to access land, farming inputs, and other livelihood opportunities. The membership of ZANU-PF could not be taken for granted, as it was often ‘performed’. Furthermore, interviews with informants show that land beneficiaries cannot be depicted as passive clients of a ‘patrimonial’ state, as such people actively manipulated political party membership to their benefit. As the next section will show, peasant agency went beyond faking ZANU-PF membership; it also involved other forms of invisible acts of resistance to state control over land.

‘Everyday Forms of Resistance’ After the Land Reform

In Mhondoro Ngezi people resettled at the former Damvuri Conservancy were allocated land under the A1 (villagized) model scheme. Although the model was designed to separate crop fields and common grazing lands, the boundaries imposed by technocrats during land demarcation processes have become fluid and are being continuously reshaped by the newly resettled farmers. Acts of resistance against land use plans imposed by the state are reflected in the way people have been able to extend their plots illegally into areas that were technically designated as common grazing lands. Moreover, some people have ‘side-tracked’ official land use plans by moving their homesteads from designated areas to crop fields. Their rationale for moving homesteads to their ‘fields’ was that they wanted to guard their crops from baboons and warthogs which normally invade crop fields in the night and early hours of the morning. However, by moving to their crop fields, such people have become ‘invisible’ and thus difficult to police.

It seems the reshaping of the land use plans by ordinary people reflects ongoing resistance against the new tenure regime imposed by the state during the planning phase of the land reform. Such people tend to disregard officially pegged boundaries, since they see them as open to negotiation. The absence of fences between individual plots and common lands means that boundaries can be easily ignored or manipulated.

Take, for example, Arthur Manaka (interviewed on 12 February 2011), who came from the nearby Mhondoro Ngezi CA and works at a small-scale gold mine near Damvuri. He had been able to use his wages to expand his agricultural operations by extending his plot into common lands without the approval of local authorities. He explained his strategy by stating that:

I was very lucky to get a plot bordering the common grazing lands. This means when the need arises, I will simply take more land since nobody owns these grazing areas. The good part of getting land here is that, unlike in communal areas, there is so much land that if one is a hard worker one can put as much land under the plough as possible.

Another informant Thimba (interviewed on 12 February 2011) observed how he has extended his yard beyond the one hectare he was given:

I have been able to extend my yard beyond the two acres that I was allocated. Officially, we are not supposed to use the yard for agricultural purposes but for orchards. We have 10 hectare plots located further away from here. However, I have extended my orchard into common grazing land and I am growing crops rather that fruit trees. I have also taken a large part of land belonging to myneighbor, as he was not extending his own yard.

The above interviews show how land use plans and plot boundaries imposed by technocrats are being ignored or manipulated by land beneficiaries. It also shows that, post-land reform, there is flexibility over plot sizes, as the removal of fences has made it possible for people to extend their plots illegally, beyond official demarcations by government technocrats. However, this is likely to lead to conflicts over grazing land that is running out due to ongoing encroachment.

It is not only ordinary people who have disobeyed land use plans dictated by the new tenure regime. Representatives of local authority structures such as Village Heads, Village Development Committees (VIDCOs), Councilors, and local ZANU-PF leaders have also resisted state-imposed cadastral processes which they are meant to police. Interviews with key informants such as war veteran leaders and Village Heads indicate that a new village was illegally carved out of state land that had been left unassigned by technocrats from government. This village was created to accommodate sons of land beneficiaries and ‘squatters’ who did not benefit from the initial land allocations. The village remains ‘illegal’, since it has not been registered with the Ministry of Lands. During an interview, the VIDCO chairman (interviewed at Damvuri on 15 May 2011) explained why they created a village without government approval:

We decided to create a village for our sons. Remember during the land reform, it was only the parents who got land. The plots we were given are not big enough to accommodate our sons who are now married. We decided to go ahead and allocate them land before advising relevant authorities of our decision. There is nothing wrong with what we did, we need to look out for our sons before the land runs out. After all, this land belongs to us as it was left for grazing our livestock.

The above statements demonstrate the agency of newly resettled farmers in terms of their ability to ‘side-track’ the official land allocation process as a way of safeguarding their livelihoods. Another form of resistance to the state-imposed tenure regime has been the gradual increase in so-called ‘vernacular’ land markets (Chimhowu & Woodhouse, 2005). Interviews with informants show that customary authorities and other local elites are involved in the illegal sale of land. A case in point is that of a local chief on an A2 farm which he is reportedly demarcating in five-hectare plots and selling to land-seekers for something between USD 300–700. According to informants, the chief told his clients that they were not buying land but that they were paying what is locally known as chiuchirochamambo (a token of appreciation) for being allocated land by a mambo (chief) or muridziwevhu (owner of the soil). Interviews recorded during fieldwork below provide a snapshot of how informal land markets are unfolding in Mhondoro Ngezi:

Manjoro (interviewed at Damvuri on 20 September 2014) stated the following:

When my father was allocated land in 2000, he had many sons that did not benefit from the land reform. My four brothers and I are now married but we do not have land. Our father’s 10-hectare plot is too small to accommodate all of us. Although one of my brothers has been allocated land in a newly opened up village, I was not able to secure a plot. I was forced to go and approach a chief nearby who had subdivided his A2 farm into A1 plots and was selling them to land seekers. I paid five hundred dollars (USD 500) to secure a five-hectare plot.

Another informant, Changara (interviewed in Harare on 13 November 2014), who had not benefited from the land reform, came all the way from Harare to buy a plot, after a relative of his told him that a local chief was selling land:

I did not benefit from the land reform as I did not join land occupations or apply for land. I decided that I could just buy a plot from a chief who I was told was selling land. I still live in the city in Harare but would one day want to retire to my plot. I paid USD 700 dollars, but the chief is taking time to allocate me the plot I paid for. The chief claims I am not paying for the land, but that payment is a token fee for being shown a plot by a chief who owns the land.

Empirical data from Mhondoro Ngezi show that informal land markets are increasingly becoming an important avenue for the landless to access land. There are two important reasons for the above. First, as noted in the interviews above, under the FTLRP, a household was allocated one plot without taking into account the land needs of the sons of beneficiaries who are now married and in need of their own land. This has forced such landless sons to resort to informal land markets, as they cannot access the land officially. Second, since not everyone benefited from the land reform, those who did not join the land occupations and, hence, did not gain access to land, are now forced to utilize informal land markets as they cannot access land through formal channels. This shows that land reform is not a finished business and that struggles over land are likely to remain for the foreseeable future. Pronouncements by the Minster of Lands that ‘the fast-track land reform was officially over’ (The Herald, 8 February 2016) are likely to lead to the intensification of informal land markets, as official channels are now closed. So-called ‘vernacular land markets’ are increasingly becoming an important pathway for the landless to access land. Such markets must thus be conceptualized as both a form of peasant agency and resistance to state-making processes during a changing agrarian situation; this is often ignored in the literature. Another important point to highlight is that the FTLRP has created an atmosphere of flexibility in land tenure which has allowed landless people to access land through informal means. This flexibility in tenure extends to the utilization of natural resources which had been formally enclosed under the previous agrarian structure. The details of how peasants have taken advantage of the land reform to extract natural resources illegally have been explored elsewhere. This is especially the case for artisanal mining activities which have dramatically increased post the land reforms.

The Mhondoro Ngezi case study demonstrates that peasants deploy various strategies to access land and other livelihood opportunities associated with the land reform. They also resist state-imposed tenure regimes which they often manipulate to suit their local needs. For such people, membership of the ZANU-PF is seen as instrumental to one’s survival. People are more concerned about protecting their land and accessing government help than belonging to political parties. Although they participate in ZANU-PF meetings, this is seen as a means to an end. Furthermore, people view the new land tenure regime as flexible, allowing people to either extend their plots beyond the boundaries imposed by technocrats during the land demarcation process or to participate in informal land markets to access land. This shows that peasants are not passive clients of a patrimonial state but active participants in a changing agrarian situation.

Conclusion

The people resettled at the former Damvuri Conservancy in Mhondoro Ngezi district came from diverse geographical locations, and they competed to gain access to land during the implementation of the FTLRP. The article has highlighted the agency of land seekers in terms of their ability to utilize ‘weapons of the weak’ to gain access to land. Such weapons of the weak involved, inter alia, extension of plots beyond official boundaries pegged by officials from the Ministry of Lands and creation of new villages which were not known to the government in order to accommodate their children who had not been offered land by the government. Furthermore, newly resettled households responded to land shortages by encroaching on common grazing lands and other state land which were either demarcated into plots to be resettled by new comers (as part of a flourishing informal land market) or children of land beneficiaries. Peasants also instrumentalized membership in ZANU-PF to leverage access to land and other economic opportunities associated with the land reform. This local agency demonstrates that peasants were not passive beneficiaries of a changing agrarian situation but utilized their agency to take advantage of new livelihood opportunities brought about by the land reform.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.