Madheruka and Shangwe: Ethnic Identities and the Culture of Modernity in Gokwe, Northwestern Zimbabwe, 1963–79

Abstract

In colonial Southern Rhodesia, administrative officials often couched the rhetoric of ‘modernization’ in ethnic terms. They regarded immigrant Madheruka master farmers as the embodiment of modernization because they had been exposed to forces of modernization in their areas of origin, while both officials and immigrants alike regarded indigenous Shangwe as backward and primitive. This article argues that the construction of Madheruka and Shangwe ethnic identities dates primarily to the early 1960s, with the coming of immigrants and the introduction of cotton. Shangwe defined the immigrants as madheruka, a term whose origins lay in the eviction of the immigrants from crown land by colonial officials in the 1950s, while Madheruka termed the indigenous peoples shangwe, or backward. Each group perceived itself differently, however, Shangwe claiming that the term Shangwe referred to a place rather than to their ethnic identity and Madheruka claiming to belong to authentic Shona groups. The guerrilla war of the 1970s witnessed an attack on modernity as the guerrillas and their sympathizers regarded immigrant farmers as colonial collaborators.

Negotiating Territoriality in North-Western Zimbabwe: Locating The Multiple-Identities of BaTonga, Shangwe, and Karanga in History

“…Origins of the term Shangwe are not clear, but there were several versions given in different oral accounts. Nyambara (2002) gives the impression that the term Shangwe began to be used by immigrants from the south in the 1960s to refer to indigenous people they found in the north of Zimbabwe. He also gives evidence showing that these people began to be referred to as Shangwe people in pre-colonial times.…”

“…To indigenous people of Gokwe, the term Shangwe describes frequent droughts and famines that often devastated that area in the pre-colonial period. Gokwe is generally a very dry area and prone to periodic drought and famine (Nyambara, 2002). Therefore, landscape qualities and features were used to cast derogatory identities by dominant ethnic groups upon seemingly weak ones.…”

“…Demarcation was also meant to protect white-owned cattle ranches in Kwekwe (Mudzimu, 2016:52) from tsetse. Land pressure in the southern parts of Zimbabwe had become untenable and the sparsely populated northwest of Zimbabwe became a dumping ground for these displacees (Nyambara, 2002). These Karanga immigrants from the southern parts of Zimbabwe and those from other parts of the country were labelled Madheruka by the Shangwe.…”

Law, expertise, and settler conflicts over land in early colonial Zimbabwe, 1890–1923

“…This focus on settler-African conflicts over land reflects the centrality of land in anticolonial struggles in Zimbabwe, but it has also discouraged an examination of conflicts over land among both settlers and Africans. However, as a number of relatively recent studies has shown, exclusions along lines of ethnicity and gender existed among Africans in colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe (Dzingirayi, 1994;Nyambara, 1999Nyambara, , 2002 and were exacerbated by colonial and postcolonial state intrusions in African agrarian lives (Alexander, 2006;Moore, 2005). Although these recent studies (e.g., Nyambara, 1999Nyambara, , 2002 have paid attention to gender and ethnicity in the politics of land, Stoler's (1992: 320) observation that in the former colonial world, ''the objects of .…”

Forced Resettlement, Ethnicity, and the (Un)Making of the Ndebele Identity in Buhera District, Zimbabwe

“…In so doing, the study builds on a growing body of scholarship examining the intersection of forced resettlement and identity formation in Zimbabwe. Examples of such literature include Worby’s (1994) and Nyambara’s (2002) studies of developments that took place in Gokwe district after the resettlement of evictees from Rhodesdale Ranching Estates near the town of Kwekwe. With slight differences of emphasis, both scholars concluded that ethnic labeling and counterlabeling became a daily occurrence in that area.…”