Cambridge Journals Online

SQUATTERS, LAND SALES AND INTENSIFICATION IN MARIRANGWE PURCHASE AREA, COLONIAL ZIMBABWE, 1931–65 ¹

Abstract

This article considers the different ways that Marirangwe purchase area farmers understood and used their farmland, resources and opportunities. In the pioneer period from 1931 to the 1940s, Marirangwe farmers favored extensive use of their land and its resources. However, as labor and capital opportunities changed, land became for some an expendable commodity. By the 1950s, the farmers' ability to generate capital through land sales paralleled the arrival of squatters in the area. With the help of these squatters and revenue from land sales, Marirangwe farmers prospered. This development, however, did not signal a change from the extensive farming habits of the pioneer period but rather a brief, and generally prosperous, period of specialization.

Footnotes

¹ Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers for this journal for their helpful comments. I am indebted to Nancy Jacobs for reading and critiquing several drafts of this paper. I also thank Britt Anne Johnsen for her expert editorial assistance. Mr Mansa Chipunza, Mr Amon Sibanda and Mr Obadiah Siunya, Marirangwe farmers themselves, introduced me to other farmers and helped me interview Marirangwe residents. In August 2000, I presented a version of this paper to members of the University of Zimbabwe Economic History seminar series. Their incisive comments forced me to rethink some issues raised here. The Joint Committee on Africa of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies with funds provided by the Rockefeller Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation funded my research in 1990–1. A Hendrix College faculty project grant allowed me to work in London and Oxford in August 1998 and to return to Zimbabwe in July–August 2000.