The politics of land scarcity: Land disputes in save communal area, Zimbabwe

Conflicts over land, a major theme in Zimbabwe's rural history, are widely recognized as 'most serious' in the densely populated Communal Areas.' Pres sure on land in these areas is considerable because of population growth an d the segregationist policies of the colonial government that concentrated Africans on marginal lands. Land scarcity in the Communal Areas does not, h owever, mean that conflicts over land are always economically motivated As the agricultural potential of land is often limited in Communal Areas, land cases may often be better understood as socially induced. This article on land disputes in the Murambinda area of Save Communal Land aims to elucidat e the different meanings attached to land It presents a situational analysi s of a single case of land dispute and argues that land conflicts in the ar ea are predominantly political power struggles. The litigation of land case s is dominated by village leaders (vanasabhuku) and largely takes place out side the state's legal arena. Consequently, local state institutions respon sible for land issues have a limited understanding of and exercise little c ontrol over land issues. The findings of this study thus provide a differen t view in the ongoing debate on the need for tenurial reform in Zimbabwe's Communal Areas, for they challenge the state's administrative capacity to e nforce such reform.