Property and empire: from colonialism to globalisation and back

This article argues that spatial re-ordering in the interests of globalisation goes back to the very beginning of modern Western empires. It does this by exploring the role of land law in globalisation. It shows that there is a remarkable continuity stretching back some 800 or more years in the use of land law to spearhead first English, but now Anglo-American, inputs into and interference with the spatial ordering and national land laws of countries in the developing world. This interference extends even into attempts to re-order land laws and land management as part of programmes of post-conflict statebuilding

The party-state in the land occupations of Zimbabwe: the case of Shamva district

There has been significant debate about the land occupations which occurred from the year 2000 in Zimbabwe, with a key controversy concerning the role of the state and ruling party (or party-state) in the occupations. This controversy, deriving from two grand narratives about the occupations, remains unresolved. A burgeoning literature exists on the Zimbabwean state’s fast-track land reform programme, which arose in the context of the occupations, but this literature is concerned mainly with post-occupation developments on fast-track farms. This article seeks to contribute to resolving the controversy surrounding the party-state and the land occupations by examining the occupations in the Shamva District of Mashonaland Central Province. The fieldwork for our Shamva study focused exclusively on the land occupations (and not on the fast-track farms) and was undertaken in May 2015. We conclude from our Shamva study that involvement by the party-state did not take on an institutionalised form but was of a personalised character entailing interventions by specific party and state actors