ANOTHER SIDE TO RURAL ZIMBABWE - SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF FARM-WORKERS IN URUNGWE DISTRICT, 1940S

To understand why commercial farm workers in Zimbabwe are on the margi ns of state development plaits, this article presents an argument that suggests it is crucial to understand the historical roots of both rur al administrative relations, and political identities, in the power re lations that crystallized around the emerging field of 'development' i n Southern Rhodesia in the 1940s. During this period, different proced ures of controlling conduct became defined along three distinct spatia l and sociological identities: administrative development of 'rural Af rican peasants'; administrative politics of 'European farmers'; and do mestic government of 'African farm workers' on European farms. This pa per situates the privileging of 'domestic' (paternalistic), as opposed to 'public', procedures of dispute settlement and resource allocation on European farms in the wider policy changes of the 1940s and illust rates some of the common practices of this 'domestic government' throu gh examples from white farms in Urungwe District, the site of the larg est government resettlement scheme for returning European soldiers fro m World War Two.