39
DOI: 10.1201/9780429440939-4
3
Conversations with
Nature Spirits
The Political Ecology of Power
and Progress in Rural Zimbabwe
Georgina McAllister
Coventry University
Mike Zeddy Chikukwa
Chikukwa Ecological Land Use Community Trust ( CELUCT)
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we present a discussion between a community activist and a political ecologist
who reconnected high in Zimbabwe’s remote Eastern Highlands, drawn together by Cyclone
Idai, the most devastating to ever have hit Zimbabwe. The breath-taking backdrop to our discussion belies the hidden, but no-less dramatic, erosion of bio-cultural diversity, knowledge and
social connection shaped by the colonial project since the end of the nineteenth century. This
effectively paved the way for the persistence of coercive power relations into independence, and
their tangible effects - land grabbing and livelihood loss, structured poverty and dependence,
leaving people chronically exposed to disasters, political opportunism and conflicts. In this context, farming approaches that reconnect people to one another and their landscape are seeking
to make meaning, restore collective agency, and heal the scars left by societies’ most destructive
tendencies. Yet the coercive, and sometimes violent environments where these approaches are
being re-imagined are rarely conducive to connectivity and healing. Our discussion explores the
spirits that inhabit the natural world, the mixed blessings of a crisis, and its capacity to create
moments of reflection within which to re-imagine our world afresh.
In picking our way through the complexities of this remote place, this first disembodied voice
comes from a so-called ‘ rational’ political ecology perspective to both narrate the context and
explore how power shapes our relationship with the environment and each other, while the second
CONTENTS
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 39
The Landscape and Its People ..........................................................................................................40
Changing Relationships with the Landscape ................................................................................... 41
Culture Laced with Power................................................................................................................ 42
The Role of More- Than-Human Interactions in Generating Change .............................................. 43
Arriving at Place ..............................................................................................................................44
Coming Together on the Land to Heal the Past ............................................................................... 45
Conclusion: Connecting the Dots ....................................................................................................46
References ........................................................................................................................................ 48
DOI: 10.1201/9780429440939-4
3
Conversations with
Nature Spirits
The Political Ecology of Power
and Progress in Rural Zimbabwe
Georgina McAllister
Coventry University
Mike Zeddy Chikukwa
Chikukwa Ecological Land Use Community Trust ( CELUCT)
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we present a discussion between a community activist and a political ecologist
who reconnected high in Zimbabwe’s remote Eastern Highlands, drawn together by Cyclone
Idai, the most devastating to ever have hit Zimbabwe. The breath-taking backdrop to our discussion belies the hidden, but no-less dramatic, erosion of bio-cultural diversity, knowledge and
social connection shaped by the colonial project since the end of the nineteenth century. This
effectively paved the way for the persistence of coercive power relations into independence, and
their tangible effects - land grabbing and livelihood loss, structured poverty and dependence,
leaving people chronically exposed to disasters, political opportunism and conflicts. In this context, farming approaches that reconnect people to one another and their landscape are seeking
to make meaning, restore collective agency, and heal the scars left by societies’ most destructive
tendencies. Yet the coercive, and sometimes violent environments where these approaches are
being re-imagined are rarely conducive to connectivity and healing. Our discussion explores the
spirits that inhabit the natural world, the mixed blessings of a crisis, and its capacity to create
moments of reflection within which to re-imagine our world afresh.
In picking our way through the complexities of this remote place, this first disembodied voice
comes from a so-called ‘ rational’ political ecology perspective to both narrate the context and
explore how power shapes our relationship with the environment and each other, while the second
CONTENTS
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 39
The Landscape and Its People ..........................................................................................................40
Changing Relationships with the Landscape ................................................................................... 41
Culture Laced with Power................................................................................................................ 42
The Role of More- Than-Human Interactions in Generating Change .............................................. 43
Arriving at Place ..............................................................................................................................44
Coming Together on the Land to Heal the Past ............................................................................... 45
Conclusion: Connecting the Dots ....................................................................................................46
References ........................................................................................................................................ 48