Tonga Timeline: Appraising Sixty Years of Multidisciplinary Research in Zambia and Zimbabwe

VI. The Gwembe Tonga Craft World and Development Intervention

CHAPTER VI The Gwembe Tonga Craft World and Development Intervention Gijsbert Witkamp1 Abstract This text is about the impact of four craft development projects in the Gwembe Valley on the Gwembe Tonga crafts world during 1980 to 2000. The interventions extended the Gwembe Tonga crafts world beyond the boundaries of Gwembe Tonga life to the national and international crafts business. The projects economically and culturally sustained, expanded and enriched that world; they did so, ironically, by the introduction of exotic projects, which (still) are alien to indigenous socioeconomic organization. In particular, the three donor-aided projects created a disjointed Gwembe Tonga crafts world, that is, a crafts world populated by parties which lack mutual understanding and stable, durable relationships. Participation of crafts makers in governance was obstructed by lack of a corresponding indigenous organization that could provide a model for such participation, by conflicting interests of 1. Gijsbert Witkamp is a cultural anthropologist who from 1988 to 2010 was involved in craft development projects in the Gwembe Valley. Engaged by the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV), he was the founding project manager of what became the Choma Museum and Crafts Centre Trust Ltd. dominating local elite, unfamiliarity on the part of crafts makers with the kind of organization a development project is, and sometimes sheer lack of interest. Introduction The rupture in the life of the Gwembe Tonga imposed on them by the construction of the Kariba Dam at the end of the 1950s also greatly affected their crafts world. British colonial rule, established at the beginning of the twentieth century, had not radically altered the Gwembe Tonga way of life. The Gwembe Valley was isolated, poorly accessible, unhealthy for Europeans and of little economic value at the time. In the 1950s it was realized that the Zambezi River, quite literally the artery of Gwembe Tonga society, could be tapped to feed the energy requirements of Southern and Northern Rhodesian towns and mining industries. The area was opened up by the construction of roads, the colonial administration became a permanent rather than an incidental presence, and schemes were put in motion to enforce resettlement of some 57,000 people. The hydroelectric Kariba Dam flooded the Gwembe Tonga into modernity. The natural resources of the valley no longer primarily served the Gwembe Tonga, but national and international economies. The incorporation of the Gwembe Tonga into the modern world subjected them to political and economic interests over which they had very little control, a situation which also prevailed after independence of the former Rhodesias in 1964 (Zambia) and 1980 (Zimbabwe). Government, NGOs, churches and development agencies moved in to bring what they perceived to be development for the Gwembe Tonga. One result of these extraneous concerns has been the establishment of several crafts projects as of the early 1970s. Four such projects came into existence, two in 122 gijsbert witkamp Zambia and two in Zimbabwe. The economic, social and cultural impact of these interventions on the Gwembe Tonga crafts world has been considerable. The projects introduced commercial crafts production, marketing by a specialized agency largely for external markets, professional association and training, increased exposure to regional and exotic crafts, anddisseminatedaestheticconceptsoftheforeignmarketplace rather than those grounded in locally defined function. They also confronted the crafts makers with the vicissitudes of international development assistance and of national and international markets. All projects were primarily established to contribute to poverty alleviation for the Gwembe Tonga subsistence and peasant farmers by opening up an avenue for supplementary income generation through crafts making. The Gwembe Tonga are amongst the poorest populations both in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Commercial crafts production was to facilitate participation in a monetary economy on which the Gwembe Tonga have become dependent. The crafts are exported out of the Valley in return for cash, and the cash is largely used to pay for imported commercial commodities and modern services. The commercial production of crafts, ironically, builds upon a tradition, the products of which are often less valued today by the Gwembe Tonga than the industrial commodities which, to some extent, have come to replace them. The crafts projects typically fulfil an intermediary role between indigenous production and an exotic market; between sponsoring development agencies and crafts makers; and, by extension, between the Gwembe Tonga and the world at large. They are agents of change, linking and extending a crafts world beyond the boundaries of Gwembe Tonga life to the national and international crafts business...