As part of our ongoing research on Zimbabwe’s land reform after 25 years, we have been exploring what is meant by ‘home’ and ‘belonging’. Across around 100 interviews undertaken in all our sites, we have asked two simple questions. Firstly, ‘where is ‘home’?’ Second, we asked where will you be buried when you die? Answers to these questions were varied, and often depended with property rights, local politics, proximity to town and so on. The following 11 selected cases highlight the varied responses. A reflection follows.
Case 1 (Matobo)
OD is originally from Zvishavane. He acquired an A1 self-contained plot in Matobo in the early 2000s. When asked where is home, he explained:
For me, home is where my assets are. A lot of my assets are in Bulawayo; so that’s where home is. Because of tenure insecurity and uncertainty, I could not invest a lot at the farm. Some people have invested a lot on their plots such that their place feels home. Take EM for example. He has invested a lot on the farm. He even buried his wife there. When I die, I will be buried in Bulawayo because of two important factors. First, as I said, my assets are in Bulawayo. Secondly, it will be easier for my children to visit my grave and clean it if I am buried in Bulawayo than if I am buried in Zvishavane or at the plot. Because I have assets in Bulawayo, my children are likely to visit there more often. They will seldomly visit Zvishavane where I grew up because I don’t have assets there. My older brother had an A2 plot in Shangani. When her wife died in 2007, we decided as a family to bury her here in Bulawayo. My brother wished to bury her the plot as he had developed the place and considered it their ‘home’. After much deliberations, we decided as a family to bury her in town where it will be easier for the children to visit and clean the grave. One of my sons is in Australia, another is in Namibia and the other girl is in the UK, another daughter is in Gweru, while the other son is in Bulawayo. So now you see how dispersed these children are? They all grew up in Bulawayo and therefore consider Bulawayo as their ‘home’. During holidays and family gatherings, they all come to Bulawayo. So, it made sense to bury her in town than at the farm. Having made that decision, we reserved the next grave for my brother so that he could be buried next to his wife. We had to pay a certain amount to City Council to reserve the grave. When my brother passed away last year, we buried him next to her wife.
My other brother also passed away last year was buried in Namibia. We decided to bury him there to make life simple. First, he had Namibian citizenship. His children’s mothers are Namibians, and his children are Namibian citizens too. Second, he had a lot of assets in Namibia, including guest lodges, hardware shops and boats. We therefore decided to bury him in Namibia where his assets and children are. In sum, it doesn’t matter where you are buried – what’s important is where your assets are and if your children will be able to visit your grave. As the Shona proverb goes, “there is no region without a grave” (hakuna mutunhu usina rinda).
Case 2 (Gutu)
ZM is 58 years old. When her husband (a war veteran who led the invasions) died in 2002 soon after their arrival, her husband’s relatives refused to bury him at the plot, citing insecurity and uncertainty in land tenure. Instead, they buried him at their communal area ‘home’ in Chitsa where he hailed from.
My husband was buried at our original home (kumusha) in Chitsa. At the time of his death (2002), it was jambanja period and his relatives said that this place was still a bush (‘musango’) and they said that he could not be buried ‘musango’ with no security of tenure. They said what would happen to their relative’s grave should the government decide to remove people from the farms. So, they decided that he should be buried ‘kumusha’. Today, things have changed. Home is here now. If I die today, I will be buried here – no question about it. This is my home. My late husband said I must stay here; so this is my home. During the time when he was seriously ill, I took him back to our original homestead in Chitsa. And before, he died, he said, ‘When I die, please go back to the farm.’ So, I had to come back here. Besides, I had nowhere else to go.
Case 3 (Matobo)
CM is a 44-year-old man who acquired an A1 plot in 2003. When his mother died 2006, he wanted to bury her at his plot. However, because of insecurity of tenure at the time, his relatives were against the idea. As he explained:
When my mother passed on, I wanted to bury her here. I asked the ‘sabhuku’ if I could bury her here, but he said, ‘what if we get chased out of the farms, what will happen to her grave? My brothers were also not keen on the idea of burying her here. This was in the early years when it wasn’t clear whether people were going to stay in the farms or not. In the end, we decided to bury her at my younger brother’s place in the communal areas. But if it was now, I was going to bury her here for sure.
Although some of the deceased (particularly husbands) had stated their preference to be buried on their new home, relatives often went against such decisions. For example, TM, told us: ‘My father wanted to be buried here. But when he passed away in 2016, his relatives refused. We have a family grave yard in Chikosha where everyone is buried.’
Case 4 (Mvurwi)
LC is a 67 year-old war veteran and retired soldier. Originally from Mutoko, he acquired an A1 plot in Ruia B in 2004. He feels at home at his A1 plot. As he explained:
This place is now my home. I still visit my relatives and attend funerals and traditional ceremonies in Mutoko, but my home is here now. My eldest daughter passed away some years ago and was buried here. I can’t burry my daughter here and leave her grave here if this was not my home. This is now my new home (Pano ndopave pamusha). When I die, I will also be buried here. I won’t be buried in Mutoko. I don’t want to be buried at the Heroes’ Acre. I fought for land during the liberation struggle, and this is the land that I fought for and I will be therefore buried on this land. If government want to remove us, it has to find a new place for us to stay.
Case 5 (Mvurwi)
MM is 31 years old. His late parents got an A2 plot in 2000 near Mvurwi town. Originally from Chipinge, his father was born and bred in Concession. MM’s paternal great-grandfather was a medical doctor and businessman in Concession. In the early 2000s, MM’s father and his paternal grandfather managed to acquire A2 farms. His father got an A2 farm in Pembi Chase near Mvurwi, while his grandfather’s plot is in Tsatse farm near Concession. Following the death of his parents, MM took over the A2 plot in Pembi Chase farm. Asked where he calls ‘home’, he explained:
I do not have any connections with Chipinge. My late father and mother were all buried at my grandfather’s A2 plot at Tsatse farm, where my grandfather was also buried. When I need to plough, my grandmother sometimes sends a tractor for ploughing. I also go there to help my grandfather with work. She also sends us maize if we don’t harvest enough maize for home consumption. I consider my grandfather’s A2 farm in Tsatse farm as home. This is where my parents and grandfather were all buried. There is no way I will be buried here alone.
Case 6 (Mvurwi)
CM is 67 years old and is an A2 farmer in Pembi Chase. He is originally from Chivi, but has worked as the district extension officer since 1994 in Mvurwi. In the early 2000s, he then managed to obtain an A2 plot in Pembi Chase, near Mvurwi Town. He has two houses in nearby Mvurwi town. CM does not wish to be buried at his A2 plot because of uncertainties around land near town. He explained:
My home is Mvurwi town. When I die one day, I will be buried at the cemetery in Mvurwi town because there is better security of tenure there than in the resettlement farms. These farms have a lot of politics, so you never know what can happen in the future. Moreover, my farm is located 5km away from Mvurwi town and the treat of eviction is there when the town expands. Already there are some farms that were already affected by the expansion of Mvurwi town.
Case 7 (Gutu)
SD is a 45 year-old married woman who got an A1 plot in her own right. Her husband hails from Nerupiri area. They never had a homestead there. As such, she never really developed a strong emotional attachment to Nerupiri itself, and felt at ‘home’ while there. She explained:
We never had homestead in Nerupiri area where we came from. So, this is my first ever home. I do not have any emotional attachment and affection with my husband’s original communal areas because I never built a homestead there. When I die, I will be buried here.
Case 8 (Gutu)
GM was born in Munyaradzi area in Gutu in 1982. Her husband is originally from Ndahwi. The family acquired an A1 self-contained plot in 2006 in Clare farm. In response to the question ‘Where is home?’, she said:
This is our home. We always tell our kids that this is our home. My husband was born in a family of six boys. So, his parents’ home in Ndahwi is a family property, belonging to many people. So, we can’t call that place our ‘home’. We always tell our kids that this is now their new home. When we die, we will be buried here.
Case 9 (Gutu)
TM is a 35 year-old woman who lives with her two children in her late parents’ A1 self-contained plot in Clare. She fled an abusive husband and came to live at the farm. She has one surviving brother who lives at their parents’ communal area homestead in Chikosha. TM feels at ‘home’ at the plot as she has ‘freedom’ away from her brother’s family. As she explained: “I feel at home here because I am free to do whatever I want than at our communal area home in Chikosha. The communal area home in Chikosha now belongs to my brother and sister-in-law.”
Case 10 (Gutu)
LD is a 64 year-old widow who inherited an A2 plot in Northdale from his late husband. When her husband passed away in 2021, she decided to bury her husband at their communal area home because at the time of his passing they had not as yet constructed a good homestead. However, now that she and her children are in the process of building a good homestead, she intends to be buried at the plot. As she explained: “When I die, I will be buried here. I hope by then I would have finished building substantial houses her. My husband was buried in Chitsa, despite the fact that we were no longer living there permanently, because at the time we had not yet built good houses here.”
Case 11 (Matobo)
TM is a 58-year-old man who acquired an A1 self-contained plot in Matobo in 2007. He does not have a formal tenure document, and there has been ongoing uncertainties with regards to the A1 self-contained farms in the district. These farms were originally designated as ‘three-tier’ farms, and are yet to be formalised as A2 farms. He explained:
This place is where my heart is. But we are not permanent here. You see those iron zinc over there [pointing]. I wanted to build a proper homestead here but I can’t until I have proper papers. I had an A1 plot in Vimbi, but I had to sell it because my said that people there bewitched her. My wife doesn’t want to be buried when she dies because she says people in Vimbi have bewitched her. She wants to be buried in town. My preference is cremation when I die, because my children can then carry my ashes whenever they are on the move. If they get jobs abroad, this will also reduce the financial burden of having to come and visit my grave if I am buried in a traditional way.
Where is home?
Drawing on these and many other cases, we identified four responses to the question ‘where is home?’ (see also an earlier blog focusing on how young people are redefining ‘home’). These are: returning to the communal area home of the previous generation; creating new homes in the new resettlement; women returning to their natal home after disputes and feeling at ‘home’ in cities and towns.
The old communal areas as home
Returning to the communal area home was more common during the initial period of settlement. This period was characterised by a sense of insecurity and uncertainty of land tenure. Thus, the new land reform areas did not feel like ‘home’ for many. It was not clear if people were going to stay for long or they feared being evicted at some point. As various case studies have shown, the people loathed to bury their deceased relatives in the farms because of fear of evictions. Instead, they returned to communal areas ‘home’ to bury their deceased relatives, where they had ancestral connections to the land. As SD, an A1 farmer in Lonely explained:
In the past, people here used to go and bury their beloved ones at their original homes in the communal areas because of tenure insecurity. There was a lot of uncertainty in terms of whether we were going to stay or evicted. The main worry was what will happen with the graves if we get evicted. This has since changed, and people are confident and certain that this is now our new home. We don’t worry about evictions anymore.
Creating new homes in the land reform areas
Things have changed over the last 25 years. Most A1 farmers we interviewed considered their new farms to be ‘home’. The new land has undergone a process of familiarisation. The feeling of ‘home’ has emerged over time as a people feel more secure in terms of land tenure. Today, many people, especially in the A1 areas, are buried in the farms as people feel much more at ‘home’ in the farms than was the case in the early 2000s. People are comfortable to bury their deceased relatives or to be buried in the farms when they die. Several generations on, with many relatives now buried on the farm, many people call the A1 farms ‘home’, although some have maintained close bonds with relatives where they came from. Grave sites, lineages and spirits are important part of the process of creating a new ‘home’ and sense of belonging in a new place.
A similar story is seen in A2 areas, although there is more uncertainty. In these areas, land tenure often remains insecure. Uncertainties surround land evictions (due to politics and audits for A2), and for land near expanding towns (in the case of Mvurwi). Thus, for some, A2 areas do not feel like ‘home’ to them. As a result, some loath to bury their deceased relatives in the A2 areas. These areas are perceived as spaces for work (kubasa) and economic gain rather than ‘home’, especially by those who straddle towns and resettlement areas. This makes the third response – town as ‘home’ – an alternative.
Town as ‘home’
A number of our interviewees identified their houses in towns and cities to be ‘home’. This was especially so among the A2 farmers. This is a ‘modern’ alternative for those who straddle town and resettlement areas, especially A2 farmers. When asked where they would be buried, this group of people said that they would be buried in town cemeteries where it will be easier for their children from cities, diaspora and other relatives to visit.
The younger generation returns
In some cases, we see women going back to natal home if there are disputes at a husband’s home (on separation and divorce) so as to avoid trouble. Women may be less invested in the place (especially if younger), but also women are now setting up homes at parents’ plots with their husbands. Thus gender roles are changing definition of home – and sense of belonging.
New land, new ‘homes’ and belonging
With greater land tenure security in A1 areas, most people now regard their A1 plots as ‘home’, resulting in a greater sense of belonging in farms now settled for up to 25 years (see also here, and our series on ‘success’, where commitments to land reform areas were highlighted as indicators of success). This has changed since the early period of resettlement when there was much more insecurity and uncertainty about the future of land reform areas. This contrasts with A2 areas where people often feel less secure given the fickle nature of land politics in these sites. In addition, many do not reside on their A2 farms and see them rather differently, with town houses being more likely to be seen as home. Gender relations are changing too, with women often having independent homes in the rural areas, although patriarchal norms mean that when circumstances change some women feel it is safer to return to their natal homes. All these changes have resulted in shifts in burial practices, with many more now seeking burial sites, and linked ceremonies following death, in the A1 farms. The presence of graves also means that transferring plots associated with particular people and their spirits can cause problems in some instances.
Designations of home, and the presence of the dead, now over several generations, means that land takes on new meanings, with implications for how it is seen and used. Land reform was not just about redistributing land, but changing where homes are, where the dead are buried, where spirits reside and where people have a sense of belonging.
This post was written by Tapiwa Chatikobo (PLAAS, UWC) and first appeared on Zimbabweland