Fighting Over Fences

VU Research Portal Fighting over fences. Organisational co-operation and reciprocal exchange between the Save Valley Conservancy and its neighbouring communities, Zimbabwe Wels, H. 2000 Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Wels, H. (2000). Fighting over fences. Organisational co-operation and reciprocal exchange between the Save Valley Conservancy and its neighbouring communities, Zimbabwe. 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Oct. 2021 VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT Fighting over Fences Organisational Co-operation and Reciprocal Exchange between the Save Valley Conservancy and its Neighbouring Communities in Zimbabwe ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Vrije Universiteit te Amsterdam, op gezag van de rector magnificos prof.dr. T. Sminia, in het openbaar te verdedigen ten overstaan van de promotiecommissie van de faculteit der sociaal-culturele wetenschappen op dinsdag 30 mei 2ooo om 13.45 uur in het hoofdgebouw van de universiteit, De Boelelaan nos door Harry Wels geboren te Amsterdam Executive Summary I I This study is about organisational co-operation, a joint venture, between two partners I with different social identities related to land (and hunting) in Zimbabwe. The one is corrunercial, mainly white, farmers; the other black corrununal farmers. Twenty-four I conimercial farmers have pooled their land into a single private wildlife conservancy, comprising some 3300 1anz in the southeast of the Zimbabwean Lowveld, the Save I Valley Conservancy (SVC). The SVC is located in two provinces, two Districts and sur rounded by another three Districts. The corrunercialland of the SVC is surrounded by corrununalland on which some II9,ooo communal farmers (try to) make a living. They co-operate with the SVC through a representative body and joint venture partner, the Save Valley Conservancy Trust (SVCT), which was initiated by the SVC in 1995. Private wildlife conservancies have no statutory definition in Zimbabwe. In answer to questions I in Parliament, the Minister has said that conservancies would only be allowed in Zimbabwe if they were able to generate and create a 'formal and meaningful relation I ship' with neighbouring communities. I The structure of organisational co-operation under study is about reciprocal exchange between corrunercial and communal farmers. The theoretical framework is build I around the concept of reciprocity and the related concepts of trust and imagery. The SVC 'offered' the SVCT to the neighbouring corrununities and argued that this particu I lar joint venture would offer an economic win-win situation to both partners: the SVC I would be politically legitimised and thus be able to exploit their wildlife utilisation scheme economically, mainly through sports hunting, concentrating on the buffalo. The corrununities would earn money through the joint venture by attracting donor I money for restocking the SVC with wildlife. The wildlife the SVCT would bring in the SVC with the help of donor money would be paid for by the SVC, through which a devel opment fund would be created which would then be redistributed to the communities so that they could start different kinds of development projects in the villages sur rounding the SVC. In the Introduction the general theme of the thesis is described and the central research question is formulated: How did the initiative taken by the Save Valley Conservancy to establish organisational co-operation and benefit neighbouring communities through a Trust develop in terms ofreciprocity and related trust, whereas the two partners belong to groups with rival social identities with respect to land (and hunting) i~_ Zimbabwe, in the period 1991- 1998, and how can these developments be explained? Following the research question the structure of the thesis is given. In Chapter I a theoretical perspective for interpreting the context and case study is con structed and presented on the basis of organisational and anthropological literature on the relevant concepts of reciprocity and trust Furthermore, the notion of a reciprocal win-win situation is explored theoretically. The argument basically boils down to four XViii FIGHTING OVER FENCES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY XiX main lines of argumentation. First of all, it is stated that reciprocal relations are a mix The underlying question of the thesis is whether the prospect of an economic win-win ture of affective and effective considerations. This implies that reciprocity contains strat situation is a sustainable base for this joint venture. It is here that the importance of con egic economic calculation and negotiation as well as morally based and altruistic con text, both historically and socio-culturally, of processes of social identity construction by siderations. In its ideal types it comprises both forms of economic exchanges and strict both white commercial and black communal farmers is considered in Chapter 3· Both ly personal gift exchange. In daily life, the boundary between these two extremes is often relate to the land for their social identity, only for very different reasons. The white peo blurred. Therefore reciprocal relations are highly ambiguous and ambivalent This gives ple in southern Africa relate to landscape on the basis of an aesthetic and primarily rise to uncertainty which is (at least partly) dealt with by trust. Reciprocity and trust are Romantic criteria and heritage. This white heritage and its base in Romanticism is ex two sides of the same coin. Without trust a reciprocal relation cannot develop. In turn, tensively described in relation to land and hunting in southern Africa, starting from the reciprocal relations are instrumental in generating trust. Secondly, reciprocity is gov very first day Jan van Riebeeck set foot at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. In contrast to erned by time and timing. Time sequences and time lapses are essential in estimating white perceptions of land, the black people relate to the soil of the land. They relate to the nature of a specific reciprocal relation. If a return is expected immediately, there is the land as a child to its mother, (often) in a spiritual way, while the whites relate to the obviously not much trust involved, strategy and calculation prevail. If no time frame for land as people to an object of desire. In terms of the theoretical perspective on recipro a return is stipulated at all, the gift presents itself as disinterested; as not being a politi cal exchange it is crystal dear that a mother is kept strictly out of reciprocal circulation, cal or economic instrument for gaining any form of direct advantages. In the third place, while the object of desire can be commodified as a product for tourists with whom the any reciprocal relation cannot be analysed properly without considering it in its exten white people can share their aesthetic preference for the landscape and appetite for Big sive context. Two forms of context are indicated here. In the first place a historical con Game hunting. Here a basic and crucial paradox can be discerned: black and white text in which images and reputations which play a crucial role in the beginning and con share their relation to the land, although for different reasons. For these different rea tinuation of a reciprocal relationship are constructed. Images and reputations form an sons they relate to each other in an antagonistic way in relation to land (and hunting). important basis for inclusion, but also, often overlooked, exclusion in reciprocal rela But, although the attachment to the land of both black and white creates antagonism in tions. The second context is the present one, which can take the more specific local so southern Africa, it can at the same time serve as a basis for organisational co-operation, cio-political, and socio-economic constellation into account. The description and analy because of the unanimous love for the land. This basic paradox is taken as the starting sis of context in this double sense may absorb a great deal of space and attention, as in point for a future scenario of organisational co-operation between black and white in this thesis, but the reward is a better understanding of the particular local configuration Zimbabwe. The scenario is described in the concluding chapter of this thesis and it is of organisational co-operation in terms of reciprocity and trust between the SVC and its operationalised in the appendix entitled Recommendations. neighbouring communities. Fourthly and finally, reciprocity is not only about giving, receiving and returning, in short about exchange, but also about what is not given, The antagonism between black and white in southern Africa, both with their distinctive which has to be kept at all times. Most often these things, both material and immateri social identities related to land and hunting, has a strong historical dimension going al, are intimately related to social identities of people and groups and therefore seem back to the very first day that white people entered present-day Zimbabwe in the Pioneer more fundamental to their sense of self than the things circulating in reciprocal ex Column in 1890, which is the starting point in Cb.apter 4 of a description of The Land change.

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