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“They Do Not Sit Down, These Women”: Land Rights, Freedom, and Livelihoods In Zimbabwe Under the Fast-Track Land Reform Program
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- Author / Creator
- MANDIZADZA, SHINGIRAI
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This research explores how land reform in Zimbabwe, and particularly the extension of primary land rights to women, influences gender relations. I carried out research in a resettled village where women had received individual title to land during Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) of 2000. Through in-depth interviews with single women (who were typically widowed, older and unmarried, or divorced) who had primary rights to land, as well as with married women and men in the village, I examined gender dynamics around land ownership. Land as space and place creates the contexts and outcomes where gender and other social relations are performed, contested, and (re)produced. My findings reveal that the radical socio-spatial reorganizations of land reform can destabilize gendered relations of subordination tied to the land. I use a broadened conception of land to investigate the critical social relations built around land This research shows that not only do gender relations shift in the context of changing rights to land, but gender and other subjectivities are also constituted and contested, with transformative potential. Overall, this research advances a theoretical understanding of gender relations that is crucial to addressing the challenge of agricultural reforms and land rights for women in Zimbabwe and in rural agrarian landscapes more generally.
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- Subjects / Keywords
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2021
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
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- License
- This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.