COLONIALISM AND ITS IMPACT ON ZIMBABWE

Colonialism and its impact on Zimbabwe

Colonialism and its impact on Zimbabwe

Introduction:

Zimbabwe is a republic of central Africa bordered on the west by Botswana, Zambia to the north, northeast and east by Mozambique, south by South Africa. Zimbabwe has an area of 390,759 sq km. Its capital is Harare. (Burke, 2002)

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country in sub-Saharan Africa, which in recent years has been characterized by widespread social change and upheaval. The process of mothering in Zimbabwe is constantly shifting in response to the changing sociocultural, economic, health, and political dynamics of the country. In 2003, life expectancy at birth in Zimbabwe was 36 years for women and 37 for men (among the lowest in the world). The total fertility rate was 3.9 (down from 5 in 1993), and the annual growth rate was 1.4 percent. Maternal mortality was 1,100 per 100,000 live births in 2000, and neonatal mortality was 33 per 1,000 live births.

Thesis Sratment:

Colonialism has played a major role in the detrimention of Zimbabwe.

Colonialism:

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Boer and British presence grew stronger. In 1888, the Ndebele king Lobengula conceded mineral rights in the south of the Zambezi to British businessman Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902). The following year, Rhodes won (fraudulently) the British government a charter for his company, the British South Africa Company, for the administration of conquered territories in central and southern Africa. The company promoted the colonization of Rhodes Farm, including towards the territories in which sovereignty does not extend. Since then, Northern Rhodesia became Zambia, while Southern Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1965. From the beginning of British colonization, English and Afrikaans established themselves in the administration of the state. (Gell, 1998)

In 1890, was found as Salisbury (now Harare). Until 1897, a war fought between the whites in the Shona and Ndebele, who were eventually relegated to "reserves", and every African should be provided with a way to get out. In 1895, the territory was formally named and colonized Rhodesia. Rhodes is the company that administered the country with its own separate government and its colonial laws. Shortly after, the Shona Ndebele allied with their traditional enemies, to launch a crusade called Chimurenga, that is to say the "war of liberation", to be thwarted after the arrest and subsequently hanging its leaders. (Fontein, 2006)

For many years, the literature on colonialism and technology largely left questions of knowledge production unaddressed. Since the technology was seen to enable colonial domination, questions about knowledge production intersected with the study of colonial technology only to the extent that guns, quinine, and steamboats needed inventing, building or repairing. Constructivist scholars went further, however, suggesting that science and technology also played a substantial ideological role in legitimizing the colonial project itself. As described by the scholars, demonstrations of 'Native' technological inferiority effectively justified European 'civilizing missions'.

In science studies, actor network theory provides a useful bridge between these materialist and constructivist approaches to technology. Some scholar's work in particular draws the attention to ...