From Enslavement to Environmentalism: Politics on a Southern African Frontier

Part 2: The Border

PART 2 The Border The rest ofthis study addresses contemporary sodal processes in Vhimba and Gogoi. The data derive principally from my ethnography carried out in those two areas between 1995 and 1997. Much ofthat ethnography centered on the importance ofthe Zimbabwe-Mozambique border, a frontier in the linear sense. Upon my initial arrival in Vhimba, however, I had considered the borderto beoflittle consequence. It is, afterall, whatMricanists constantlyterm, an "artificialborder." Thatis, the Zimbabwe-Mozambique bordercuts across the Ndauethnolinguisticareaandacross numerousbinational kindreds (Alexander 1993:54). Related to a minorityof residents, the border also cutsacross the localcongregation ofthe Zion Christian Church. (A labor migrant brought this independent, apostolic faith to the area in the early1950S.)1 I expected such ties ofreligion, ethnicity, language, marriage, and blood to weigh rather more heavily than citizenship in the minds and actions ofmy subjects. ManyAfricanists would support such a hypothesis. A. I. Asiwaju (1985a:4), for instance, declares, "Judged ... from theviewpoint of the border society life in many parts ofAfrica, the [European imperial] partition can hardly be said to have taken place." This "reality of borderlandswhere communities merged into oneanother" explains Donna Flynn's recentfinding that peoplelivingalongtheBenin-Nigeriaboundarycalleach other "border" (Nugent and Asiwaju 1996b:9; Flynn 1997). In spite of the centrifugal pull oftwo capital cities, these and similar partitioned populations have established a common interest and identity. The people of Vhimba, it seemed, could easily have done the same. In fact, initial signs pointed to the strength oftransnational ties. In 1995, 75 PART 2. THE BORDER Vhimba contained a large number of Mozambican refugees. They had crossed theborderduring theircountry'swar, andVhimbapeople hadgiven themlandto farm. Insome cases, Mozambicans' Zimbabwean relatives had assistedthem inthisprocess. And the behavior ofbothparties, again, seemed to resonate with scholarly opinion (Zartrnann 1970:144; Hansen 1979:369; Kambudzi 1997:28-29). As the book's introduction mentioned, many anthropologists describe the world as "deterritorialized," such that people move and adapt readily to new places. Refugees would appear to possess the same capacity. Ken Wilson documents that Jehovah's Witnesses chose when to leave Mozambique during its civil war, where to go in Malawi, and when and how to return. They exercised "refugee initiative" such that "[fjlight, far from simply disrupting existing social networks, had been a deliberate movement thatactuallyutilizedandstrengthenedthem" (Wilson 1994:237, 241). For such people, emigration as a "refugee" was but one instance in a wider pattern of opportunistic cross-border activity. In this view, refugeesare migrantlaborer~, smugglers, and othercosmopolitans fortuitouslyinvolvedwiththe United Nations. InVhimba'sMozambicans, had I not found another group ofbinational, border people? Furtherresearch provedtheircitizenship to be rather more rigid. In fact, headmen's methodofallocatingland to refugeesstemmeddirectlyfrom the difference in the two parties' nationalities and national histories. Northern Mossurize and Vhimba stood at opposite ends of the transformation describedin thepreviouschapter: theshift from apoliticalcultureofwealth in peopleto apolitical culture ofwealth in land. Mozambican forced labor, bothcontemporaryandhistorical, had prepared itscitizens tosufferorevade ambulatoryenslavement. In awayfew Zimbabweansdid, these noncitizens submitted to the personal authority oftheir hosting headmen. Headmen, in tum, slotted these vulnerable people into Vhimba's multiple cadastral disputes. From 1991 onward, headmen settled refugees on contested pieces ofland, on the Hayfield Bestate and in Chimanimani National Park. They exploitedthese vulnerablepeople inorderto take backlostterritory. Vhimba 's headmen turned border crossers into boundary beacons, to the surprise and dismay of the latter. The Parks Department evicted them and thereby triggeredanother round ofcadastralpolitics (see chapter 4). Byvirtue oftheir citizenship, refugees did not get what they bargained for. The Zimbabwe-Mozambiqueborder, then, is "hard.» People cross it, but emigration strips at least some people ofrights and securities they regularly enjoyat home. Thisconditional,prejudicialpermeabilitycharacterizes much ofSouthernAfrica.As Ranger (1994:287) notes, Britain, Portugal, and France 76 PART 2. THE BORDER drewAfrica's bordersas "siftersoflabour rather than asbarriersto its movement ." In the process ofpermittingtravel, these borders createanddifferentiate amongcategories ofpeople.2 Elites maysuffernothingworse than cultural disorientation upon crossingaborder (cf. Wilson and Donnan 1998:2). Even among refugees, groups with preexisting advantages may adapt more easilyto exile. The Jehovah'sWitnesses described byWilson possessed organization and leadership to a striking degree. Similarly, Anita Spring (1979) finds that female Angolans in Zambia rose in social position much more readily than did their male counterparts. Theydivorced their Angolanhusbands and remarriedwealthier Zambianswhiletheirex-husbands could not afford the higherZambianbride-wealth and remained single. Immigration, thus, canaccentuate privilege and weakness. For some, "deterritorialization" isvirtuallyaform oftourism. Internationalbusinessmen mayverywellexperienceit as such. Forothers-such as the MozambicansinVhimba harassed by the Parks Department-travel may bring terror. Myown crossingofthe old...