(Re)Inventing Livelihoods Amid a Quest for Belonging—The Case of (Chewa) Ex-Farm Workers in Shamva’s Communal Areas

Abstract

The marginalisation of ethnic minorities in Zimbabwe has been authored and reinforced by the nation state and, historically across both the colonial and postcolonial periods, this has had profound implications on the livelihoods of ethnic minorities. These ethnic groups include Africans of ‘foreign’ origin whose roots are often traced to neighbouring countries, mainly Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi. These ethnic communities are today mainly a ‘colonial residue’, consisting of various generations of migrants who came into the country mostly as covenanted labour during the colonial era. This chapter focusses on one specific group, namely the Chewa originally from Malawi, who lived and worked on white commercial farms in Zimbabwe for decades and over generations. From the year 2000, they were displaced from the farms in the context of Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme and some migrated to communal areas, as they had lost ties, or had no ties, to their purported country of origin. Through a case study Bushu communal areas in Shamva District, this chapter focusses on the re(invention) of livelihoods by the displaced ex-farm workers in ethnicised communal areas in the face of disputes around agrarian spaces and land access, and how they sought to belong to these areas in the process.