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From the Second to the Third Chimurenga: Historical Perspectives on Zimbabwe’S Recent Past

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From the Second to the Third Chimurenga: Historical Perspectives on Zimbabwe’S Recent Past From the Second to the Third Chimurenga: Historical Perspectives on Zimbabwe’s Recent Past. Call for papers The International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, South Africa and the Centre for Historical and Political Studies on Africa and the Middle East of the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Bologna, Italy, are organising a two-day conference: “From the Second to the Third Chimurenga: Historical Perspectives on Zimbabwe’s Recent Past”. The conference will be held in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on 11th-12th November 2015. November 11th 2015 marks fifty years since Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from British rule. This momentous act not only shaped Zimbabwe’s history, but also had a profound impact on the whole Southern African region. As the liberation struggle (fought by the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU)) was supported by the Front Line States (FLS), Ian Smith’s regime could rely on the support provided by South Africa and, until the coup in 1974, by the Portuguese government. It was during the second half of the 1970s, within a regional context dramatically altered by the conflict in Angola, that regional and international diplomacy increased its efforts to find a political solution that would bring about a cease-fire and usher in majority rule governance. It was only in December 1979, however, that a constitutional agreement was finally signed at Lancaster House in London, paving the way to elections and then Zimbabwe’s independence in April 1980. After independence, the Zimbabwean government led by Robert Mugabe pursued a policy of “national reconciliation”, and committed itself to an ambitious policy of social development to the benefit of the black population. Yet these moments coexisted with and were soon superseded by more authoritarian alternatives, as the Gukurahundi campaign against ZAPU’s supporters was to show. As the 1990s progressed, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) continued to cement its stranglehold on power. However, the implementation of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme brought about a rapid deterioration of economic and social conditions in the country, and fed the growth of a new opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). It was within this context that Mugabe and ZANU-PF unleashed a campaign of political violence against the MDC, and sanctioned the controversial “Fast Track Land Reform Programme” (FTLRP), that deepened the economic crisis of the country and led the European Union and the United States to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe’s political and military leadership. Fifteen years after the launch of the FTLRP, what next for Zimbabwe? This conference will seek to place these recent developments in the context of Zimbabwe’s multiple histories over the past fifty years. In doing so, we invite panel proposals and paper submissions that seek to unpack the ambiguities of both the liberation process (es) and the first thirty- five years of Independence. Papers that address the following themes are particularly welcome: 1. UDI and the liberation struggle(s) within the context of the Cold War and regional solidarity. 2. The nature of settler society in the 1960s and 1970s. 3. The ideology and practices of the liberation struggle. 4. Government-opposition and government-civil society relations after independence. 5. Economic development in relation to gender, race and class in postcolonial Zimbabwe. 6. The winners and losers of land reform since 1980 and, in particular, the effects of the FTLRP. 7. The transformation of the Zimbabwean state since 2000. 8. The regional and international responses to the crisis in Zimbabwe. Abstracts of 250 words accompanied by a short CV should be submitted to Dr. Andrew Cohen, Dr. Kate Law and Prof. Arrigo Pallotti at [email protected] by 1st May 2015. Successful presenters will be notified by 1st June. .
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