Lecture | Seminar
ASCL Seminar: A Long-term Perspective on Land Reform from Zimbabwe’s Experience
- Date
- Thursday 24 May 2018
- Time
- Location
- Pieter de la Court
Wassenaarseweg 52
2333 AK Leiden - Room
- 1A27
This seminar will be given by Bill Kinsey, a guest researcher at the African Studies Centre Leiden and initiator of the Zimbabwe Rural Household Dynamics Study (1982). He has been invited by Prof. Marleen Dekker, who will chair the afternoon.
Zimbabwe has experienced two major – and markedly different – phases in its land reform efforts. The first was carefully planned and implemented with support from a broad group of international donor agencies; the second, which began in 2000, was motivated primarily by political considerations and was implemented in a chaotic and non-transparent fashion that has done severe damage to the economy and harmed international relations.
This seminar addresses long-term outcomes from the first phase of Zimbabwe’s land reform. Particular attention is given to contrasts in spatial dimensions – between the areas of origin of those who were resettled and their new homes in the land-reform areas. A parallel emphasis is the conclusions that arise from short-term observations regarding economic and social outcomes and the contradictions that arise from longer-term viewpoints. It concludes with an overview of what can be expected in terms of rural poverty alleviation from African land-reform interventions.