Idioms of Accumulation: Corporate Accumulation by Dispossession in Urban Zimbabwe

Abstract

David Harvey's notion of ‘accumulation by dispossession' has inspired a wide range of studies in different places. But it has hardly registered in the area of urban land grabbing in Africa and what the role of local capital has been in these processes. In this article, I use archival data, field observations and insights from key informant interviews in Harare to examine how the 1990s neoliberalism and the post‐1999 Zimbabwe crisis created new opportunities for accumulation of wealth through the irregular and fraudulent transfer of public urban land into private hands, including those of reputable corporate institutions. I provide a summary of the literature on contemporary land grabbing, raising questions about and providing new insights for a comparative understanding of the transformative role and nature of the state, postcolonial African cities, anti‐capitalist struggles, and the status and meaning of planning in different settings.

Accumulation without Dispossession? Land Commodification and Rent Extraction in Peri‐urban China

“…: 64). At the urban scale, accumulation by dispossession has been observed from processes of gentrification and displacement (Smith, ; Shin, ; Lees, ), the transfer of public land into private hands (Mbiba, ), ‘new urban enclosures’ in housing commodification and regeneration (Hodkinson, ), as well as revanchist practices that separate citizens from their urban commons such as the policing of public space and the eviction of squatters (Smith, ; Gillespie, ).…”

“…Drawing on the notion of ‘value grabbing’ (Andreucci et al ., ), it is shown that the unequal distribution of value appropriated from land amongst the classes of actors involved in land development provides the basis for a new kind of contentious politics. In theorizing the new mechanisms by which accumulation by dispossession is unfolding on the fringes of Chinese cities, this article seeks both to deepen understandings of land politics and accumulation strategies in contemporary China and to contribute to the literature on urbanization and dispossession in the global South (Levien, ; Gillespie, ; Shin, ; Mbiba, ; Zhang, ).…”

Frontiers of Urban Control: Lawlessness on the City Edge and Forms of Clientalist Statecraft in Zimbabwe

“…His work has helped respond to calls for political economy insights into why public institutions in African cities lack capacity and fail to capture land and property values (Monkham and Moore ; Palmer and Berrisford ; Turok ). It emphasises the heightened importance of urban land and property as bases for accumulation in Africa, where urbanisation is occurring without concurrent industrialisation (Goodfellow ; Pitcher ; on Harare, see Chirisa et al ; Mbiba ; Muchadenyika ). But in Harare—and elsewhere—urban patronage economies are not just about capturing land values, but are also about capturing votes (on “votebank” politics in South Asia, see Bayat ; Roy ; on Harare, see Muchadenyika ).…”

“…The emergence of substantial informal settlements on Harare’s edge is particularly revealing of broader shifts in Zimbabwean statecraft because the country was previously notorious for its exceptionally strong postcolonial urban planning tradition (Kamete , , ; Mbiba ; Muchadenyika and Williams ; Potts ; Rakodi ). The scale of Harare’s new informal settlements could easily reach 500,000 people, in a city officially said to number between 1.5 million (Harare Urban) and 2.1 million (Greater Harare), providing evidence that may counter prior views that the city was stagnating (Mbiba ) .…”

“…The case study clearly demonstrates the “mythical” quality of officials’ rhetorical claims to state absence, as the regulatory “voids” we discuss originated through layers of central state intervention—via land reform, housing and cooperative development policies. Control over land on the city’s periphery was central to ZANUPF’s strategy for attempting to win votes and to undermine MDC‐led urban municipalities (Kamete , ; Mbiba ; McGregor ; Muchadenyika ; Muchadenyika and Williams ). The context was one of repression of the political opposition and civic organisations, and state institutions were militarised, securitised and brought under party control.…”