Black Settlers: Neoliberalism and Ecosystemic change in Zambia’s Southern Province, 1964-2009

Abstract

Dr. Moorsom will discuss the impacts of neoliberal economic p​olicy among a group of Tonga farmers in Zambia’s Southern Province. The agro-pastoralists at the center of this study farm predominantly within private titled holdings, which were initially cleared for white settler populations. In contrast to dominant narratives of the post-independence period in Africa, Dr. Moorsom argues that Zambia did experience a developmental process post-independence, which saw significant achievements made in the agricultural sector, including the doubling of national cattle stocks. Dr. Moorsom’s research uncovers processes of overwhelming ecosystemic change that contributed to livestock epidemics of severe scale and scope. Amazingly, this went largely undocumented because of the simultaneous crisis of the state, which left the national statistics office and other state bodies incapable of functioning from the late 1980s into the 2000s. Dr. Moorsom will elaborate on a multidisciplinary methodological approach that considers the totality of land-based social relations engendered by the land use changes being driven by agro-food capital (Akram-Lodhi, 2013). This approach regards farms as ecosystems embedded in broader landscapes and society, which in this case have been structured in a particular white-settler colonial context.