Noel Ndumeya

The focus of this proposal is on societies and natural resources in colonial and post-colonial eastern Zimbabwe, from the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, to the beginning of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme in 1999. Informed by my PhD experiences, I propose to make a more nuanced and empirical study on the nexus between people and the environment. I intend to examine patterns of ownership, contestations, control and use of natural resources: land, game, timber and water. Consistent with these contestations, I aim to explore the extent to which race, ethnicity and class influenced the nature and patterns of human struggles over these resources. While I propose to pursue a case study approach, this shall be within broader context of theories, debates and discourses about the linkages between societies and the environment in Africa more generally in the Sub-Sahara African region in particular.