Stapleton, TimothyRuguwa, Mathew2021-12-022021-12-022021-11Ruguwa, M. (2021). A socio-environmental history of dispossession and displacement in the Zimunya, Marange and Bvumba (Chirara) communities of eastern Zimbabwe, 1920s - 2015 (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.http://hdl.handle.net/1880/114153This thesis explores the lived experiences of the Zimunya, Marange, and Bvumba inhabitants as they were shaped by dispossession and displacements. Historians have long emphasized that massive land expropriation and forced dislocations in Africa were a consequence of colonial rule. While this is true, this research recognizes that dispossession and forced dislocations long predated colonialism. It demonstrates that land expropriation and displacements continued on a wide - scale in the colonial and post-colonial period where assorted state - sponsored development projects and wars resulted in rural people losing their property and being forcibly moved from their homesteads. The study highlights the endurance of the family institution in times of trouble. It uses historical episodes such as the rise of settler capitalist agriculture during the colonial period, recurring droughts, the 1970s war of independence, the National Resistance Movement Mozambique (RENAMO) war of the 1980s - 90s, and diamond extraction in Marange during the 2000s to illustrate the intersectionality between dispossession, familial resilience and creativity. Racial - related colonial laws such as the Land Apportionment Act (LAA) of 1930 and the ex-serviceman scheme launched in the immediate post World War II era triggered massive land expropriation and dislocations of Africans from their ancestral lands into the ‘Native’ reserves. In these areas people experienced misfortunes such as recurring droughts, diseases that killed their livestock and crop-consuming pests that threatened their agricultural activities. The outbreak of the War of Liberation and the RENAMO war further complicated the lives of the residents of Zimunya, Marange and Bvumba. During the Liberation War, Rhodesian counter- insurgency methods included the introduction of the Protected Villages (PVs), curfews and collective punishments. These, along with RENAMO’s episodic raids resulted in renewed threats of dispossession, loss of lives, forced dislocations and food shortages. Mechanized diamond mining did not bring meaningful development to the Marange community. To pave the way for large-scale mineral extraction, the diamond firms along with the state grabbed indigenous peoples farming and grazing land resulting in the local villagers being forcibly dislocated from their homes. In their effort to adapt to their landscape that was under constant transformation, people in the Zimunya, Marange and Bvumba communities demonstrated that they were not passive historical actors to the challenges they encountered. They resorted to diverse coping strategies. In drought times, for example, they begged for grain and food in the village to feed their households. Others were involved in foraging, searching for local temporary employment as labour in return for food and trapping quelea birds and locusts that destroyed their crops and consumed the pests as additional food. During the War of Liberation, people sneaked out from the PVs and carried out farming activities while others travelled to white-owned farms where they rustled cattle which they slaughtered and consumed. After having been forcibly dislocated to the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA) Transau, an environment where farming and grazing land including other sources of livelihoods were relatively limited, the Marange villagers responded by illegally clearing forests to extend space for crop cultivation while others became involved in selling firewood to people at Odzi shopping centre.engUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.DispossessionDisplacementindigenous peoplewarnatural disasterscolonial conservation policiesminingEconomics--Historydoctoral thesis10.11575/PRISM/39409