Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe: Beyond White-Settler Capitalism

5. Changing Agrarian Labour Relations after Land Reform in Zimbabwe

5 Changing Agrarian Labour Relations after Land Reform in Zimbabwe Walter Chambati Introduction The agrarian labour relations generated after the ‘Fast Track’ Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) tend to be neglected in most literature after 2000. This neglect largely resulted from the dismissal of the redistributive nature of the FTLRP and changing patterns of agricultural production by some studies (see Marongwe 2009; Masiiwa and Chipungu 2004; Hellum and Derman 2004; Sachikonye 2004; Davies 2004; Richardson 2005).The distributional outcomes of the FTLRP , which in turn shape a restructured agrarian labour regime, have, however, been acknowledged in a few empirical studies (Moyo et al 2009; Scoones et al 2010). Most studies analysing agrarian labour relations after 2000 have adopted modernisation perspectives, in which formal wage labour in the capitalist LSCFs is treated as superior to self-employed forms of labour in the ‘backward’ peasant sector (Freund 1984), assuming that returns to wage labour are greater than those of self-employed peasants. The self-employment of peasants is neglected because it also does not fit the formal employment criteria used by neo-classical economists (see Leavy and White 2001). The concern has been on the ‘displacement’ of former farm workers from their LSCF jobs1 and residency in the farm compounds (see Sachikonye 2003; Hartnack 2005; NRC 2003; Magaramombe 2003; Rutherford 2004). The former farm workers who lost their jobs, but are still resident in the farm compounds, tend to be addressed as ‘displaced in situ’ (Hartnack 2005; Magaramombe 2010), meaning they are out of ‘work’ regardless of their new Land and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe: Beyond White-Settler Capitalism 158 livelihoods in farm and non-farm work. In this respect, the redistribution of LSCFs to peasants is thus equated with the ‘end of modernity’ (Worby 2003), with unemployment as the sole consequence. On the other hand, the analysis of the physical displacement from the farm compounds does not adequately examine the insecure residential tenure that farm workers faced before 2000. The notion of ‘physical displacement’ does not acknowledge the extent to which the FTLRP has re-established self-employed peasant jobs that were displaced by colonial land dispossession or investigate whether this change represents losses or gains in the overall scheme of social life. Moreover, the agency of former farm workers is not examined as they are largely considered as passive victims of violence and/or human rights abuses (narrowly limited to political and civil rights) at the hands of war veterans and peasants during the FTLRP (Hellum and Derman 2004; ZHRF and JAG 2007; JAG/RAU 2008; Ridderboos 2009).The struggles they waged to improve their material conditions, including their alliances with war veterans and peasants in the land occupations (Sadomba 2008), is not assessed. Their mobilisation against land reform by land owners and their trade union, the General Plantation and Agriculture Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), emphasising job protection rather than a new livelihood after redistribution, is also not considered. The dynamic process that entailed the FTLRP in terms of the differentiated land acquisitions and allocations over the last decade, alongside changing agrarian (labour) policies, which in turn influenced the agrarian labour relations outcomes, is also not adequately acknowledged in the literature. Indeed, much of the commentaries based on the earlier phases of the land reform did not envisage changes in the outcomes with the continued implementation of the FTLRP and shifting agricultural production conditions (see, for example, Alexander 2003; Sachikonye 2003, 2004; Magaramombe 2003). The emphasis of most contributions after 2000 on what happened to former farm workers sidelines analysis on what kind of agrarian employment structure is emerging and the social relations of production that this entails. Agrarian labour relations need to be understood in their historical context and, in former settler colonies such as Zimbabwe, these were based on specific landlabour utilisation relations created by land dispossession. The ownership of land, though not the only decisive factor, is central in the emergence of agrarian labour relations, influencing who sells or hires labour power (see Patnaik 1997; Mafeje 2003; Bernstein 2010; Moyo 2011a). By eschewing the historical evolution of agrarian labour relations, the debate after the FTLRP misses the critical linkage between land and labour relations. Thus the comprehension of the new agrarian 159 labour relations requires analysis that relates labour utilisation with the new land access patterns, changing land use patterns, land tenure reforms, agricultural resource flows and their effects on different classes and segments of...