CHAPTER 7 LOCAL INSTITUTIONS AND THE QUEST FOR SURVIVAL AND INCLUSIVITY
7.4 Strategic essentialism, local institutions and the struggle to become
There is bourgeoning interest in strategic essentialism and how it has been part of the many strategies adopted by the marginalized groups in society. The term was coined by Spivak (2008) in the quest for understanding the strategies deployed by women to fight social exclusion. It has subsequently been applied by Gide (2010) in the analysis of the relations between journalists and ethnic minorities. Abraham (2009) unpacks it in the context of the feminist agenda in religion.
Overall, it is a strategy that nationalities, groups and other marginalized citizen like the Tokwe Mukosi residents present themselves. It occurs whenever there are relations of domination and subordination (Motamedi et al 2016). Identity categories evidently become the rallying point for collective representation by minority groups with the aim of settling political ends. Reflecting on my Tokwe Mukosi experience strategic essentialism becomes a political strategy deployed by the
‘victims’ who are also acting on the basis of the displacee status in the interest of unity, recognition and the struggle to become real citizens (Chalder 2011).
While there is a huge body of literature on strategic essentialism, there is paucity of literature on strategic essentialism as a strategy used by the IDPs like the Tokwe Mukosi residents. As argued elsewhere in this study, the dearth of literature on the capacity of the displacees to deploy agency and strategic essentialism can be largely attributed to the fallacy of always portraying them as passive victims of the situation. In the mission for collective representation, it emerged that the Tokwe Mukosi people are mobilizing strategic essentialism which mostly manifest itself through local institutions.
It is quite evident that just like in the feminist and racial studies, the displacement at Tokwe Mukosi has hitherto created binaries of inferiority and superiority. These binaries are clear in the
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relations between the Tokwe Mukosi people and the state. They are also present in the highly political relations with the Triangle estate and the Shangani people. This has resulted in what can be called the Tokwe Mukosi ‘essence’ (Eide). This kind of situation helps them to demand special treatment from the other actors in resource allocation. Drawing from Spivak (2008) their work can be read as strategic use of positive essentialism. The clear explanation of the Tokwe Mukosi people’s encounters with other actors is imbued in strategic actions which may also be understood as being pragmatic in this highly political environment (Eide 2006). In a collective way strategic essentialism has pushed the residents to downplay their differences in the interim in the interest of the common purpose. The purpose is to deal with social marginality that came with the dislocation from their ancestral land and livelihoods.
The collective nature of the resistance and conflict between the Tokwe Mukosi people and the state speaks to the utility of modulating personal differences for the common purpose. In many cases, it is assisting the locals to push for their rights in view of their marginalization. The systematic manner in which the guerrilla kind of resistance, which I alluded to earlier on in chapter five of this thesis becomes the ideal type of strategic essentialism. While their actions were labeled as acts of banditry by the state, these residents were able to draw sympathy from both the local and international communities. Their marginalized and subordinate status became the moral justification for those actions. Such rational and strategic actions also helped to strengthen linking social capital among the contesting displacees. Internationally the residents who were arbitrarily arrested following the violent protests were able to harness legal support from The Lawyers for Human Rights. Their case is one of the standout cases where residents were able to successfully sue the state and receive compensation in the history of postcolonial Zimbabwe.
Locally, linking social capital based on strategic essentialism was apparent in the minimal support that these residents amassed from various NGOs working at Chingwizi. As we saw in Chapter five, such support was however curtailed by an avalanche of factors, chief among them corruption, gerrymandering and the electioneering gimmick by the state. Consequently the support was politicized and highly skewed towards food aid which was also palliative in nature.
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Outside political relations, strategic essentialism and agency are also deployed to good effect in many of individualistic and collective strategies for survival at Chingwizi. Ordinarily, such cases like illegal electricity connections in the case of VaMajoni that I discussed in the preceding section attract heavy sanctions from the police and the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA). It is worth noting that in as much as this act has not escaped the attention of the responsible authorizes, it has been normalized in the pretext of the dire situation that the Tokwe Mukosi people find themselves in. The same can also be said regarding the rampant poaching in and outside the Chingwizi area. Here the displacee status rationalizes and sanctifies such illegal strategies. Of note is the fact that up to the time I finished my field work, there were no recorded cases of prosecution despite the proliferation of poaching at Chingwizi and beyond.
The history and current predicament of the Tokwe Mukosi people have also been used to lay claims to scarce resources at Chingwizi. These resources include but not limited to water, pastures and food aid. Based on the political and acrimonious relations between the residents and Billy Rautenbach, the later went on to fence off his pastures and water sources from the Tokwe Mukosi people. The state was then put in an intercalary position considering the links it has with the businessman in question. The obtaining situation then forced the state to side with the residents. Pursuant to that it, successfully lobbied the business mogul to avail the contested resources in the interim towards the end of 2018. A closer analysis shows that this became one of the exceptional cases where the Tokwe Mukosi people mobilized the state as a social institution to provide protection. Above all this was some form of linking social capital that was also coming in a vertical way to gain access to resources. In addition to that, the Tokwe Mukosi case goes down as a rare case where the state is at least able to provide food relief to its citizen given the dire financial constrains that the country is going though. Nevertheless, as we noted earlier on, the residents complained about the inadequacy of food relief that they are getting from the state. In addition, serious concerns were raised about the politics of inclusion and exclusion in the access to this important staple diet.
Politically, the displacee status is of utmost importance in the relationship between the locals and ZANU PF party at Chingwizi. In chapter five I highlighted that the relations between the state
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and or ZANU PF were characterized by gerrymandering and electioneering. While this is true it should be emphasized that the Tokwe Mukosi displacees are far from being rendered passive victims of the ZANU PF’s shenanigans. On the contrary, they exhibited the tenacity to use agency in a dialectical way. Thus, claiming allegiance to ZANU PF and its structures at Chingwizi became a strategic move used to lay claims to valuable resources needed for survival.Towards the end of my field work, it was indicated that a group of youths in Nyuni engaged the ZANU PF Youth League for it to also induce the ZANU PF Politburo to expedite their allocation of land. The Politburo is the supreme decision making organ of the ZANU PF party and is chaired by the president. Their case is strengthened by the fact that only their parents were allocated land in the aftermath of the forced displacement. As noted in chapter 5, most of these youths have started their own families. Such a precarious situation has heightened the need for land in this context. In a list of their request they also included request for first priority in the allocation of irrigable land. In the same vein a group of villagers approached the ZANU PF chairperson in view of getting fishing permits at Tokwe Mukosi dam. In these request the overall justification is that they are the ones who suffered most out of the dam construction. Given this background, rationally, they should be accorded an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of modernity, which is believed to be the fulcrum of the Tokwe Mukosi dam construction.
At the micro level, allegiance to ZANU PF is also a ticket to acquiring limited resources such as food aid. While the relations between the locals and ZANU PF were distasteful, the ZANU PF chairperson and other organs like the ZANU PF Youth and Women’s leagues became key institutions for determining who gets access to food aid. Political affiliation is also used in the politics of inclusion and exclusion to the much cherished land for small enterprise business. At both Bongo and Nyuni business centers, it was revealed that one had to be politically correct to get access to land for business purpose. Additionally, it also became a viable strategy which the entrepreneurs mustered to remain operational. In tandem with this a female business person at Nyuni remarked,
“Kana uri webusiness sesu kudai unototamba inorira. Ukasatoita zveZANU PF upenyu hunokuomera. Nekudaro kunyange usiri weZANU PF unotongoita izvozvo kuti zvinhu zvifambe.”
(If you are in business like us you ought to dance along. If you dissociate yourself from ZANU
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PF your life becomes difficult. So even if you do not like ZANU PF you have to pretend).
The tenacity to use the above mentioned local institution for survival was also observed by Nhodo (2013). He observed that many of the respondents in the newly formalised Chimusana market in Masvingo had to be ZANU PF during the day and MDC (the main opposition party) at night. Such a strategy was indispensible for retaining the trading places and wares. Similar findings were observed by Gukurume (2018) in his study of Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Harare where allegiance to ZANUPF was turned into social and economic capital for the youths. As we observed in the previous section, donating to the ZANU PF cause was also a viable strategy used to remain in business for small shop owners at Chingwizi. It should be noted that the patron-client relationship between the Chingwizi villagers and ZANU PF is not peculiar to this context. ZANU PF is just using this commercial space to amass or generate the much need political mileage (Gukurume 2018). This has always been part of the party’s culture and mobilization strategy to gain political capital (Kamete 2017). What is new however is the capacity of the displacees to also use ZANU PF to strengthen linking social capital for survival in the alien context.