Transcending Objectifications and Dualisms: Farm Workers and Civil Society in Contemporary Zimbabwe

Abstract

In the academic literature, civil society is often conceptualized in terms of objectifications and subject—object dichotomies. This is the case with regard to both social movements and non-governmental organizations. This article seeks to transcend such argumentation by providing ‘thick descriptions’ of the agency of farm workers and civil society in the context of land reform in contemporary Zimbabwe. We examine a land-based social movement (and the role of farm workers within it) and the involvement of a particular non-governmental organization in farm worker livelihoods. On this basis, we offer a re-formulation of civil society as a social field marked by ambivalences and tensions.

Ephemeral Development Agendas and the Process of Priority Shifts in Malawi

“…Specifically, sociological institutionalism highlights the ways non-governmental organizations legitimize world society values (Beckfield, 2003; Boli and Thomas, 1997; Meyer et al, 1997; Meyer and Jepperson, 2000; Robinson 2015), how professionalization of civil society may devalue or undermine local ideas and participation (Fridell, 2013; Ghosh, 2009; Hunsberger, 2010; Olesen, 2008), and the ways world cultural values may take precedence over economic development (Frank and McEneaney, 1999). Literature on sociological institutionalism led me to examine how global discourse was being interpreted by those in CSOs and to question whether local elites 1 might influence local strategies or must simply adapt to world cultural goals, thus conceptualizing CSOs’ embeddedness in a complex “field of tension” (Sadomba and Helliker, 2010).…”