Description
Book SynopsisTakes an ethnographic and historical look at the politics of eco-development in the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border zone. This book views that European colonization in southern Africa has profoundly reshaped rural politics and culture, as neo-liberal developers commoditize the lands of African peasants in the name of conservation and economic progress.
Trade Review"Presents an exciting and well-researched overall appraisal of the history, culture, politics, and economics of the boundary region between Zimbabwe and Mozambique. This is a regional and interdisciplinary work that deserves attention from scholars of southern Africa and anyone interested in ideas around development, environment, and power in the postcolonial African state."
-- Jane Carruthers * Environmental History *
"From Enslavement to Environmentalism is a theoretically, historically, and ethnographically rigorous book that will challenge academics and practitioners to rethink, requestion, and reevaluate current social processes and our well-intended roles in them. This is an exceptional and timely work, distinguished by Hughes's characteristic balance of insight, genuine, provocation, and concern."
* Society and Natural Resources *
"From Enslavement to Environmentalism is an important contribution to the fields of political ecology, environmental anthropology, and Southern African studies. Hughes has combined archival research and ethnographic fieldwork to produce a historically situated account of contemporary struggles over land and development while raising fundamental questions about the nature of environment and development projects in Southern Africa."
* American Anthropologist *
"McDermott Hughes. . . offers a rich anthropological interpretation of cultures of ownership and failures of liberalism . . . . Hughes has written a fine study of settlement and land politics in the southern regions of Africa. It is an important and interesting book, well worth the read."
* Canadian Journal of History *
"An excellent study . . .presents policymakers, activists, and scholars alike with an important and provocative argument that deserves to be heard."
* International Journal of African Historical Studies *
"A fascinating study of the history and current state of the politics of land and people on both sides of the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border. This is a valuable work in terms of its specific coverage of the Ndau-speaking people."
* African Studies Review *
"This is an important book. Its contributions are multiple. The historical analysis of political development in these two regions of Mozambique and Zimbabwe is provocative, and suggests a novel way of viewing the dynamics of colonialism . . . . An important addition to the scant historiography of the region."
* Anthropological Quarterly *
"From Enslavement to Environmentalism stands out in the debate on politics around community-based conservation in Africa and is very strong empirically."
* Electronic Green Journal *
Table of ContentsAbbreviations
Linguistic Conventions
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Power on African Frontiers
Part 1: Colonization, Failed and Successful
1. Compulsory Labor and Unclaimed Land in Gogoi, Mozambique, 1862-1992
2. From Clientship to Land-Grabbing in Vhimba, Zimbabwe, 1893-1990
Part 2: The Border
3. Refugees, Squatters, and the Politics of Land Allocation in Vhimba
4. Community Forestry as Land-Grabbing in Vhimba
5. Expatriate Loggers and Mapmakers in Gogoi
Part 3: Native Questions
6. Open Native Reserves or None?
7. In Conclusion, Three Liberal Projects Reassessed
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
