Does Land Still Matter? Gender and Land Reforms in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) in Zimbabwe effected changes in the racial, class, and gender structure of land ownership. However, while changes in the racial and class structure have been well explored in existing literature, their articulation to gender in the agrarian structure is not yet well understood. This is because the literature has mainly accounted for gender in relation to the formal redistribution of land to women through titling, and not as a structural element of agrarian reform that locates women within the labor and capital nexus of land ownership. This article aims to fill this gap in our understanding of the gendered agrarian component of FTLRP by locating gender within the political economy of the agrarian reform and by evaluating gender in relation to the capitalist accumulation structure which the land reform sought to alter.