Communal Tenure and Rural Poverty: Land Transactions in Svosve Communal Area, Zimbabwe

Abstract

The idea of communal tenure has formed a key plank in the rural governance of Zimbabwe since independence, but its retention following the Fast Track land reforms of 2000–2002 perpetuates a distinction between ‘commercial’ land governed by a land market and ‘communal’ land on which market transactions are illegal. This article draws on recent research in Svosve Communal Area to examine the dynamics of land access and their implications for rural poverty in Zimbabwe. The authors argue that, as in many other parts of Africa, access to land governed by customary authority in Svosve is increasingly commoditized via informal, or ‘vernacular’, sales or rental markets. In failing to acknowledge and address this commoditization of land, the ‘communitarian’ discourse of customary land rights that dominates the politics of land in Zimbabwe — as elsewhere in much of Africa — undermines, rather than protects, the livelihoods of the rural poor.

Impacts of Privatization of Customary Land Rights in Zambia: A Comparative Study of Rural and Peri‐urban Locations

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The Link between Rural Institutions and Rural Development: Reflections on Smallholder Farmers and Donors in Zimbabwe

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Post‐Conflict Ambon: Forced Migration and the Ethno‐Territorial Effects of Customary Tenure

“…To meet the needs of the rural poor and mediate conflicts between land users, customary land tenure is gaining increasing popularity among donors, NGOs and governments in the South (Peters, 2004; Toulmin and Quan, 2000). Examples of countries that have witnessed a gradual recognition of customary land tenure in their recent history include Malawi (Peters and Kambewa, 2007), Zimbabwe (Chimhowu and Woodhouse, 2008), South Africa (Mathis, 2007), Venezuela, Bolivia and parts of the Philippines (Hirtz, 2003). This growing popularity of the customary finds its origins in several development paradigms, all of which imply a move away from state‐led programmes of formal, individual land titling.…”