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Madheruka Immigrants and the Shangwe: Ethnic Identities and the Culture of Modernity in Gokwe, Northwestern Zimbabwe, 1963 -1979

Pius S. Nyambara, Jackson State University, MS
pius.s.nyambara@jsums.edu

In colonial Zimbabwe, administrative officials often couched the rhetoric of ‘modernization’ in ethnic terms. They regarded immigrant Madheruka farmers as the embodiment of modernization because they had been exposed to forces of modernization in their areas of origin, while both officials and immigrants alike regarded and disparaged the indigenous Shangwe as ‘primitive’, ‘backward’ and ‘resistant to change’ because they were ‘reluctant’, for various reasons, to accept new farming techniques which included the cultivation of cotton. One of the central arguments is that there was an interconnected process in Gokwe by which ethnic identities were constructed alongside the adoption of new economic practices. The construction of Madheruka and Shangwe ethnic identities can be dated primarily to the early 1960s, with the influx of immigrants and the introduction of cotton in the Gokwe region of northwestern Zimbabwe. The indigenous Shangwe defined the immigrants as madheruka, a term whose origins lay in the eviction of the immigrants from crown land by colonial officials in the 1950s, while Madheruka termed the indigenous peoples, shangwe, or backward. Each group perceived itself differently, however, Shangwe claiming that the term Shangwe referred to a place rather than to their ethnic identity and Madheruka claiming to belong to authentic Shona groups. The guerrilla war that characterized the 1970s in Zimbabwe witnessed an attack on modernity as the guerrillas and their sympathizers regarded immigrant farmers as colonial collaborators.
The paper will address the following questions: What were the origins of the ethnic labels Madheruka and Shangwe? How widespread were the perceptions of Shangwe backwardness? Why did the immigrants call indigenous people Shangwe, and why did the indigenous call the immigrants Madheruka? Did each group accept these terms? How rigid were these ethnic labels? Did they become fixed or did they become more fluid over time? Why and in what ways did colonial officials reinforce these ethnic categorizations? How did the guerilla war of the 1970s whose ideology was opposed to the colonial modernization agenda, affect ethnicity and the culture of modernity? By seeking answers to these questions, the paper will contribute to the emerging literature on ethnicity in northwestern Zimbabwe.

Abstract

A-G H-P Q-Z


Africa Conference 2006: Movements, Migrations and Displacements in Africa
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