Conditional Belonging: Farm Workers and the Cultural Politics of Recognition in Zimbabwe

This article examines Zimbabwean land politics and the study of rural interventions, including agrarian reform, more broadly, using the analytical framework of territorialized ‘modes of belonging’ and their ‘cultural politics of recognition’. Modes of belonging are the routinized discourses, social practices and institutional arrangements through which people make claims for resources and rights, the ways through which they become ‘incorporated’ in particular places. In these spatialized forms of power and authority, particular cultural politics of recognition operate; these are the cultural styles of interaction that become privileged as proper forms of decorum and morality informing dependencies and interdependencies. The author traces a hegemonic mode of belonging identified as ‘domestic government’, put in place on European farms in Zimbabwe's colonial period, and shows how it was shaped by particular political and economic conjunctures in the first twenty years of Independence after 1980. Domestic government provided a conditional belonging for farm workers in terms of claims to limited resources on commercial farms while positioning them in a way that made them marginal citizens in the nation at large. This is the context for the behaviour of land‐giving authorities which have actively discriminated against farm workers during the politicized and violent land redistribution processes that began in 2000. Most former farm workers are now seeking other forms of dependencies, typically more precarious and generating fewer resources and services than they had accessed on commercial farms, with their own particular cultural politics of recognition, often tied to demonstrating support to the ruling political party.     

Reviews

Populism and Feminism in Iran: Women's Struggle in a Male‐Defined Revolutionary Movement ,Haideh Moghissi, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994, 217 pp., $59.95.

La Beauté menacée: anthropologie des maladies de la peau en Iran , Niloufar Jozani, Tehran: Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, 1994, 317 pp., illustrations, tables, Bibliography, Index.

Iranian Cities: Formation and Development ,Masoud Kheirabadi, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991, xiv + 132 pp., illustrations, glossary, and appendixes.

Faith and Freedom ,ed. Mahnaz Afkhami, Syracuse: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1995.

Mongolia: The Legacy of Chinggis Khan ,Patricia Berger and Terese Tse Bartholomew, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995, 340 pp., 310 illustrations, 237 in color, $60.00.

Mongol Jewelry ,Martha Boyer, Carlsberg Foundation's Nomad Research Project, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995, 278 pp., 200 illustrations, 90 in color, $50.00.

Frühe iranische Moscheen vom Beginn des Islam bis zur Zeit sal?ūqischer Herrschaft ,Barbara Finster [Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Abteilung Tehran: Archäologische Mitteliungen aus Iran, Erganzungsband 19] Berlin: Dietrich Riemer, 1994, 319 pp., 1 map, 149 figures, 48 plates, Bibliography, Index.

Khomeini's Forgotten Sons: The Story of Iran's Boy Soldiers ,Ian Brown, London: Grey Seal Books, 1990, viii + 190 pp.

Dancing Barefoot on Broken Glass ,Leonardo Alishan, New York: Ashod Press, 1991, xvi + 77 pp., $7.50.

Persico‐Kurdica: Études d'ethnomusicologie, de dialectologie, d'histoire et de religion (parues dans les années 1964–1978), Mohammad Mokri, Louvain: Peeters, 1995, lv + 505 pp.

Padyavand ,ed. Amnon Netzer, Judeo‐Iranian and Jewish Studies Series, vol. 1, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1996, xxvi + 143 English + 367 Persian.

The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ‘Ala'; ad‐Dawla as‐Simnani ,Jamal J. Elias, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995, xvi + 255 pp., $ 16.95.

The History of al‐Tabari ,vol. XXXIII: Storm and Stress along the Northern Frontiers of the ^cAbbasid Caliphate ,trans, and annot. C. E. Bosworth, SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies and Bibliotheca Persica, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.

The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy ,Daniel Pipes, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996, xii + 404 pp.

The History of al‐Tabari , vol. XII: The Battle of al‐Qadisiyyah and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine , trans. Yohanan Friedmann, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992, xxii + 237 pp.

La Region d'Arak et de Hamadan: cartes et documents ethnographiques , Hélène Desmet‐Gregoire and Patrice Fontaine, with the collaboration of Mohammad ^cAli Ahmadian and Abolqasem Taheri, Studia Iranica, Cahier 6, association pour l'avancement des études iraniennes, Leuven: Teeters, 1988.

Myth and Mobilization in Revolutionary Iran: The Use of the Friday Congregational Sermon , Haggay Ram, Washington, D.C.: The American University Press, 1994, xiii + 250 pp., $59.00 cloth.     

New towns — the Indian experience

Recent government policy has enacted significant changes in the approach to training both north and south of the Border. In April 1991 the establishment of Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, along with a network of Local Enterprise Companies, marked a shift in the direction to employer‐led and locally delivered training programmes. The importance of tourism to Scotland has attracted government attention and, in anticipation of the new training network, a Tourism Training Initiative has been set up to expand the take‐up of training opportunities. This area‐based approach is welcomed but it is argued that tourist businesses, especially the small accommodation sector, have particular characteristics that have made the uptake of training traditionally a low priority. The absence of consideration of these characteristics in the design of the new employment strategies is argued to be a significant weakness.     

A gendered media analysis of the prime ministerial ascension of Gillard and Turnbull: he’s ‘taken back the reins’ and she’s ‘a backstabbing’ murderer

In contemporary Australian politics, challenges to the Prime Ministerial role have become more common. Australia saw five Prime Ministers from 2010 to 2015 including Australia’s first ever woman Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. A stark contrast is evident in media portrayals of Gillard and her male counterparts, apparent most recently in the response to Malcolm Turnbull’s ascension to the Prime Ministership. A range of evidence has been produced, in disciplines including political science and media studies, suggesting the existence of systemic gender bias in the mainstream media in English-speaking democracies. This article is the first to compare the media portrayals of Gillard and Turnbull’s respective ascensions to leadership, which it does drawing on Judith Butler’s concept of gender performativity and using a content and discourse analysis. It contributes further evidence of gender bias in the coverage of political leaders.     

Children’s independence: a conceptual argument for connecting the conduct of everyday life and learning in Finland

This paper discusses children’s independence as a conceptual framework for exploring how independence in children’s everyday life relates to learning in the Finnish context. The framework is articulated using the conduct of everyday life as a theoretical base and focuses on the sociocultural aspects of informal daily life such as periods when children are at home without direct adult supervision as potentially important learning environments. Independence is also linked to discourses on educational success, self-regulated learning and children’s independent mobility. Discussion is supported by results from a survey conducted in Finland exploring parental perceptions of their children’s level of independence and children’s spatial movement and routines. The conceptual arguments made and preliminary findings summarized point to children’s independence in the conduct of everyday life as an additional factor to consider when exploring the impact of sociocultural factors on the development of self-regulated learners.     

Recently Observed Polarising Tendencies and Australian Cities

Recent research and writing about social and spatial polarisation in Australian cities is reviewed in a five-part study. The first part outlines the international context in which Australian urban restructuring and polarisation is occurring. The second considers the consequences of structural adjustment in Australia in terms of changes to the distribution of national income and social costs. There is an apparent incongruity of sharper spatial disparities developing during a decade (1982—94) when the living standards of the poor were maintained at 1982 levels by the social security system under federal Labor governments.Part three surveys several recent that explicitly set out to measure shifts in urban spatial inequality, and thereby help to clarify aspects of the debate about social and spatial polarisation under Australian conditions. Part four sets out to show how both the construction of this debate, and the response of governments to urban restructuring in Australia, are implicitly grounded in three competing theoretical frameworks: ‘post-marxist’ political economy; neoliberalism; discourses of identity and difference. Finally, practical and ethical issues are raised that stem from the triumph of neoliberal ideology over alternative visions of the ‘companionable state’.