This thesis delves into the agricultural past of the Ntabazinduna Reserve which is part of the Bubi District in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The main purpose of this case study is to investigate whether or not there was a significant agricultural change in this Reserve, particularly in the colonial period 1923-1939. The Ntabazinduna area was sparsely populated before 1918. After the First World War the African population and number of livestock increased rapidly in the Reserve because of new immigrants from the Insiza District and natural accession. Then, the African cultivators were often faced with serious problems of congestion, poor harvests and overstocking. Oral and written sources do not suggest that there was tension between the new immigrants and the local population. In response to a general realisation that the Reserves generally were deteriorating alarmingly, the Colonial State intervened in the African agrarian sector between 1920 and 1939. The White Settler Government's chief agents of change in this area were Alvord, the Agriculturalist for Natives, the NC of the Bubi District and a trained African Agricultural Demonstrator. These men went out to the Reserve where they carried out agricultural experiments in the inter-war period. It was hoped that after they had delivered lectures and conducted these experiments, then the African cultivators would abandon their old ways of farming and adopt new, scientific agricultural methods which were introduced into the Reserve by the Colonial State's agents of change. As African cultivators used these new agricultural techniques, it was assumed that they would probably be in a better position to grow enough food for local consumption. In that way some of the above economic problems could be solved. This dissertation attempts to measure the responses of the African cultivators to the agricultural experiments conducted by Alvord and the demonstrators in the Ntabazinduna Reserve. In addition, this case-study will make use of new oral evidence collected by certain individuals and submitted to the National Archives of Zimbabwe. This new material will be checked against published and unpublished sources or vice versa. Oral evidence which I collected from some elderly people of the Ntabazinduna Reserve between 1983 and 1988 will also be used to throw light on the subject of agricultural change.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy , April 2017 / This study examines the impact of climate change on the livelihoods of female elderly headed households in Gutsa village, Murape Ward, in Goromonzi District of Mashonaland East province in Zimbabwe. It is based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork that I undertook for close to nineteen months in Gutsa village. The key questions that I sought to answer in this thesis were: How is local knowledge about weather and climate change constructed? What is the nature of contestations surrounding this knowledge, and in particular surrounding the attribution of climate change to particular causes or events? How are livelihoods organized in response to the impact of climate change? I examined elderly women heads of households' perceptions and understandings of weather and climate change, issues of conflict and consensus regarding attribution and causality of weather and climate, the concepts that are used to refer to climate change, elderly women’s struggles to make sense of, and respond to climate change and to organize livelihood activities in response to the ongoing impact of climate change. In order to answer my research questions I adopted the use of Participatory Rural Appraisal, participant observation, archival research, life-history interviews, narrative research and in-depth interviews as data gathering approaches. I focused on the situated experiences of ten elderly women heads of households in Gutsa village existing in a wider community. In doing so this thesis explored these women’s complex understandings and interpretations of weather and climate dynamics as well as the relationship between climate change and their multiple and competing responsibilities. The thesis also analyses the implications of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme in the district, peri-urban development, resource commoditization and commercialization, rapidly shifting markets, changing property relations, social networks, livelihood opportunities, gender relations, changing household structure, the politics of local authority and governance and the dynamics of ecosystems and interspecies interaction. The thesis argues that there is a central vernacular climatological theory that is widely shared among the elderly as well as among other situated individuals in the village and the wider community. / MT2018

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This thesis began with research in the rural areas of Zimbabwe, in southern Africa. I began with a little background knowledge and a great desire to learn. I took my research to the rural areas to try to understand the roots of traditional architecture and the why's of building methods in Zimbabwe. My thesis project grew out of a desire to give something back to the people that had so generously opened up an opportunity for me to learn about their culture and traditions. My cultural center was an attempt to take the essential elements of traditional building, use the structural language of the homesteads and create a place that would become part of the site and culture of today's Zimbabwe. / Master of Architecture

This research is a study in systematic theology with strong implications on the biblical doctrine of anthropology for women. Having said this, it needs to be made clear that it was not the intention of this research to deal with the traditional abstract of theology in all its details. The doctrine however is alluded to, from the perspective of African Women's Theology, in that the research builds upon women's experiences, and looks at them in the light of what the researcher sees as God-given dignity for all humanity including women, from the time of creation. It is from this perspective that the researcher approached her synthesis and the basis of such analysis is multi-disciplinary. The people under study are that of the Mashangana (va-Hlengwe) and the (ya-Karangd) who inhabit South-East Zimbabwe. Special emphasis was placed on the situation of women in this area. Chapter 1 presents the motivation for the study, namely, the invisibility of women in positions of leadership responsibilities in the Church and in the public sector. The chapter seeks to investigate the causes of this imbalance and discusses the thesis of this study that women are capable of leading, but are prevented from doing so due to cultural and theological factors. The methodology and theoretical frame of reference used is also discussed in this chapter. Chapter 2 examines briefly the background information about the people under study, and related issues of geography, culture, Christianisation and civilisation. It should however be mentioned that this study has no intention of giving a detailed history of Zimbabwe and its people. Other scholars, including, Ranger, T.O. (1967; 1970); Daneel, M. L. (1971); Murphree, W. M. and Cheater, G. (eds.) (1975); Dachs, J. A. (ed.) (1973) provide adequate information in this regard. This study provides only the basic background on those aspects that are essential for purposes of this present study; consequently, the background that is given is designed to set the stage for a deeper understanding of life in South-East Zimbabwe. Chapter 3 investigates the contribution of Christianity and modernisation in shaping the identity of women. This is done in order to provide a further foundation upon which the interviews with the women and men of South-East Zimbabwe are presented. Chapter 4 begins the analysis of responses from the interviews with the people under study. From this chapter the causes of the problem become identifiable and levels of women's awareness begin to show, as analysis of the responses is undertaken. Chapter 5 continues with the analysis analyses of the responses of the interviews on the effects and influence of Christianity and western civilisation upon women, including, education, political and socio-economics. Chapter 6 is the last of the three chapters that deal specifically with the analysis of the field research, and deals in particular with the responses on the question of leadership, Church and culture as it relates to women. The limited number of women in leadership is brought out in particular from the interviews. Chapter 7 reviews African Women's Theology as a possible instrument of liberation. The goals and aspirations of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians are examined as a means of providing hope for the women of South- East Zimbabwe. Chapter 8 investigates empowerment as a way forward. It discusses the empowerment of women through both Church and society. Suggestions are made as to how empowerment can be implemented. Women themselves are challenged to take action. Chapter 9 is a summary of the entire research and a challenge to the women of South-East Zimbabwe to stand up and boldly claim their humanity and dignity and to exercise their God-given responsibilities. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

The study sets out to examine the television coverage of the 2002 presidential campaign in Zimbabwe by examining the extent to which the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation fulfilled the mandate of public service broadcasting. The primary objective of this study is to assess how ZBC television newscasts mediated pluralistic politics in the coverage of the country's presidential election campaign, in line with the normative public sphere principles. The thesis comprises seven chapters organized, first, with an introductory chapter, which provides the general background of the study. The chapter offers the rationale for the focus on TV rather than other media fomls . There are two theoretical and contextual chapters in which the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods is explained and findings are presented. Finally, the conclusion offers recommendations about the form broadcasting might take to fulfil a public service mandate and these include the strengthening of the public service broadcasting model along normative public sphere principles. The findings of the analysed election newscasts confirm that ZBC television election news was constructed in favour of ZANU PF at the expense of voices from other social and political constituencies. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

This thesis is a detailed account of Zimbabwe's controversial fast-track land reform programme. Zimbabwe's land reform history has been discussed extensively, with a focus on land redistribution. The fast-track land reform programme transferred eleven million hectares of land from 4 000 white commercial farmers to 51 543 landless peasant families. The thesis begins by offering some land reform theories and gives an overview of the land question in Southern Africa. This is followed by a discussion of Zimbabwe's land question from a historical perspective. Next is a periodised account of the successes and failures of land reform attempts made by the Zimbabwean government from independence in 1980 to 1998 when the fast-track land reform programme was conceived. Zimbabwe's political and economic situation at this time is significant. The context for fast-track land reform includes a discussion about the national question in Zimbabwe and the deteriorating status of white citizenship; the rise of Zimbabwe's liberation war veterans as a formidable force and the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change as a strong political party that was challenging, among others, the dominance of the ruling Zanu-PF party and its policies. The blueprint for fast-track land reform is discussed in order to contrast it to how the reform unfolded in practice. In this regard, the response of the international community to the violence and lawlessness that characterised fast-track land reform is worth mentioning, especially since it has bearing on how Zimbabweans are trying to cope with life in a radically altered physical and social environment, following the land reform exercise. The consequences of fast-track land reform are analysed in terms of development and the plight of Zimbabwe's farm workers; the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of farm workers, white commercial farmers and others in Zimbabwe's countryside and whether or not fast-track land reform beneficiaries can successfully engage in agriculture to improve their standard of living. The Vumba and Burma Valley case study is illustrative of how fasttrack land reform was implemented and its socio-economic impact on Zimbabwe's poor and marginalised groups, for instance, female farm workers. The case study offers valuable insights about the survival strategies that ordinary people affected by the land reform exercise are adopting in order to cope with their new circumstances. Data was gathered from a focus group discussion (pilot study), in-depth semi-structured interviews and observation on three farms, as well as interviews with a few government officials, government documents and newspaper reports. The study is useful to countries that are planning or already implementing land reform, for example, South Africa.

A vibrant and an efficient agricultural sector would enable a country to feed its growing population, generate employment, earn foreign exchange and provide raw materials for industries. The agricultural sector has a multiplier effect on any nation's socio-economic and industrial fabric because of the multifunctional nature of agriculture. The main objective of this study was to investigate how government expenditure on agriculture has affected economic growth in Zimbabwe from 1980-2009. The Log linear growth regression model was employed where gross domestic gross was the dependant variable and the explanatory variables are the factors which affect it which include government agricultural expenditure. The expenditures of government on agriculture were divided into three functions namely extension, credit assistance and R & D. The regression analyses were performed using Econometric-views 7 (E-views 7) statistical package. Regression was carried out on time series data for the period 1980 to 2009. The data was tested for stationarity and for autocorrelation. Problems of non stationarity of data were corrected by integrating the trending series. Results from the empirical analysis provide strong evidence indicating that agriculture is an engine of economic growth. The results from this study suggest that spending more on agricultural research and development can improve economic growth and ultimately reduce poverty. However, it can also be concluded that insufficient government agricultural expenditure on extension and credit assistance adversely affected economic growth in Zimbabwe, based on the results of the study. Global experience with pro-poor growth and empirical work spanning India, Benin and Malawi demonstrates the importance of agricultural expenditure for poverty reduction in poor rural areas, while also pointing to the need for complementary non farm sector growth. This study also proposes a simple methodology to estimate the agricultural spending that will be required to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015 (MDG1) in Zimbabwe. This method uses growth poverty and growth expenditure elasticities to estimate the financial resources required to meet the MDG1. The study attempts to address a key knowledge gap by improving estimation of first MDG agricultural expenditure at country level.

Land reform has been going on in Zimbabwe since the state attained independence from Britain in 1980 as a way of enhancing agrarian livelihoods for the formerly marginalized people. This study argues that, the Land Reform Programme in Southern Matabeleland rather than enhancing agrarian livelihoods, well established livelihoods have actually been drastically reduced. This has been exacerbated by the state programme of land re-distribution that prescribes a „one size fits all‟ model. Yet this is contrary to the thinking in development discourse that equitable land distribution increases rural livelihoods. As a way of gathering data this study utilized ethnography and case study methodologies. I spent two years interacting and interviewing purposively selected new resettles, communal residents, migrant workers and gold panners in this region. Results from this study confirm that, land reform has greatly reduced livelihoods, particularly agrarian livelihoods. Also, this research has found out that, the majority of residents now depend on off-farm livelihoods such as gold panning and migration to neighbouring South Africa. This thesis therefore concludes that, despite a massive expropriation of former commercial farms, people of Southern Matabeleland have not benefitted much as the village settlements (A1) and the small size farms (A2) have not received support from this live-stocking community. People in this region pin their hopes on livestock rearing to sustain their livelihoods and this study therefore recommends that, any agrarian transformation programmes should address the issues that promote livestock rearing