Immigrants, 'Traditional' Leaders and the Rhodesian State: The Power of 'Communal' Land Tenure and the Politics of Land Acquisition in Gokwe, Zimbabwe, 1963–1979

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Abstract
In 1962, largely as a result of African opposition, the Rhodesia state abandoned the Native Land Husbandry Act (NLHA), which had regulated land use and land allocation in the African areas since the early 1950s. The NLHA was replaced by the Tribal Trust Land Act (1967) through which the colonial state began to emphasise the power of 'communal' land tenure, in part to deal with land shortages in the African areas, but also to ward off the rising tide of African nationalism. Recent writings have suggested that in pre-colonial and colonial Zimbabwe there was never a unified system of tenure that could be labelled 'traditional' or 'communal'. This article builds upon these recent critiques by examining the historical processes of land acquisition and access in the frontier region of Gokwe. The article suggests that 'communal' tenure, far from being the system that the colonial state envisaged, was a terrain for a complex interplay of factors. 'Communal' tenure must be located at the juncture of different ideologies including those of state-imposed legal codes and of the various interpretations of 'custom' that individuals advanced in defence of their claims to land. A comprehensive understanding of the process of land acquisition and access can only be gained by focusing on these different ideologies.