Strangers, Spirits, and Land Reforms

This book describes efforts by the Zimbabwean government to enforce land reforms on African farmers. These compounded the land issue it now allegedly seeks to redress through invasions of white-owned farms. The reforms led to local resistance in which spirit mediums played an important role.

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This book describes efforts by the Zimbabwean government to enforce land reforms on African farmers in northern Zimbabwe. These efforts compounded rather than alleviated the problem of land scarcity for black small-scale farmers, a problem government now allegedly seeks to redress through invasions of white-owned farms. The book describes the similarities between the post-Independence land reforms and those attempted by the Rhodesian regime.
The land reforms in Dande rendered a considerable number of farmers officially landless. The book describes the resulting internal conflicts over land within the communities in Dande as well as the more concerted forms of resistance of these communities vis-a-vis the state. Attention is also given to the role the spirit mediums of the royal ancestors (Mhondoro) played in this resistance.