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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: An Overview of Zimbabwe's Land Reform Program, 2000–20
- 2 Reclaiming the Land in Mhondoro Ngezi
- 3 Land Beneficiaries and Their Origins
- 4 Governing the Land after the Land Reform
- 5 New People, New Land and New Livelihoods: An Analysis of Livelihood Trajectories after Fast Track Land Reform
- 6 ‘Turning Strangers into Neighbours’: Social Organization and Agency after the Land Reforms
- 7 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Land Beneficiaries and Their Origins
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 July 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: An Overview of Zimbabwe's Land Reform Program, 2000–20
- 2 Reclaiming the Land in Mhondoro Ngezi
- 3 Land Beneficiaries and Their Origins
- 4 Governing the Land after the Land Reform
- 5 New People, New Land and New Livelihoods: An Analysis of Livelihood Trajectories after Fast Track Land Reform
- 6 ‘Turning Strangers into Neighbours’: Social Organization and Agency after the Land Reforms
- 7 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
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 of the land beneficiaries at Damvuri. Second, there are former residents of the nearby Mhondoro Communal Area (CA) and the old resettlement areas within the vicinity. The third and last group consists of people from the gold and platinum mines in the broader Mhondoro Ngezi area, the urban areas of Kadoma, Kwekwe and Chegutu, former farm workers from the Damvuri conservancy and other former large-scale commercial farms (LSCF) in the area. It is important to highlight here that land reform was a process rather than a one-off event; some people belong to the same category, but having 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 constitute people of different age groups, gender, social and economic backgrounds. It is important to highlight here 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’.
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’s) office for ‘processing’ before they were 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.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Land and Agrarian Transformation in ZimbabweRethinking Rural Livelihoods in the Aftermath of the Land Reforms, pp. 39 - 56Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2020