Sustainability, indigenous agricultural knowledge and gender on smallholder irrigation schemes in Manicaland, 1928--1997: Rethinking peasant agrarian history in Zimbabwe

Debates on sustainable development have addressed the long-term impact of modern technology on the global resource base but I argue for the need to reconceptualize sustainability in ways that consider historicizing the relationship between western scientific knowledge and the social and cultural dimensions of sustainability. This study examines the socio-economic sustainability of an agricultural project in Manicaland Province, Zimbabwe, where colonial and post-colonial states established smallholder irrigation farming in an attempt to increase the carrying capacity of rural areas by improving agricultural productivity using western forms of scientific irrigation technology. My proposition is that male and female peasants in various social groups, on Nyanyadzi smallholder irrigation scheme in Manicaland, Zimbabwe, merged indigenous agricultural knowledge with western scientific irrigation technology to achieve socioeconomic sustainability. My objective is to identify ways in which peasant women and men incorporated indigenous agricultural knowledge into western scientific irrigation technology to sustain their livelihoods. My study fills a major gap in the agrarian history of Zimbabwe by contributing to the new ways of thinking about peasant encounter with western scientific agricultural knowledge. As such, my study constitutes a significant stage of a broader project which seeks to extend and redefine the concept of sustainability. This study draws on oral interviews, life-histories, Participatory Rural Appraisal methods and archival sources.