Rural people are doing it for themselves


Tendai Murisa is passionate about rural people and their development. Murisa was awarded the degree of DPhil in Sociology at a recent Rhodes University’s Humanities graduation ceremony. Hailing from Zimbabwe, his thesis addressed the very topical issue of emerging forms of social organisation and agency in the aftermath of “fast track” land reform.

Murisa completed his MA studies at Leeds University in the UK, but felt he had not exhausted the subject of land and agrarian reforms and the way they relate to rural and national development.

Professor Fred Hendricks from Rhodes was mentioned to him by a number of people as an expert on the subject, and Murisa decided to approach him in 2007 with the rough draft of a proposal. When Prof Hendricks helped him refine the proposal before he even committed to studying at Rhodes, he was sold.

Murisa says the most important finding of his research was the way in which rural people have their own way of analysing their realities and devising responses that are robust enough to respond to the challenges. For instance, the areas he studied have been neglected by NGOs, and to a certain extent the state, but the land beneficiaries have formed their own small groups which help in the mobilisation of labour, assets and finance.

His study dismisses previously held notions of disempowered peasantries and proves that they are actively engaged in resolving their lives. Of course the research was not without its obstacles. There were times he had to suspend the field work, especially in the period leading up to the Zimbabwean elections in 2008.

Murisa is back in Zimbabwe, working for the African Institute for Agrarian Studies (AIAS) and strengthening his thesis in the hope of publishing it as a book for wider readership. He has also been placed on a secondment with Trust Africa – a grant making organisation based in Senegal – to help co-ordinate a grants project to smallholder advocacy organisations.

Murisa is convinced that there are ways to expand the participation of rural people in the economy and therefore to grow a country’s economy more holistically. He has come up with the idea of a rural bank and the first such bank will be launched under the umbrella of AIAS in August this year in Harare.

There are also plans afoot to extend the concept to Malawi and Zambia however, Murisa is not happy to leave it at that. He plans to use this innovation as a launch pad for new research material, e.g. tracking how rural livelihoods are impacted by the introduction of micro-credit.

“I am a dreamer”, he says “the sky is the limit.”

By Cathy Gush