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The Politics of Extractivism and Resistance in Contemporary Zimbabwe

G. T. Mudimu

Published 2025 in South African Review of Sociology

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT Drawing on evidence from multiple rural sites in Zimbabwe, this article examines extractivism and the resistance that emerges as communities struggle against varying forms of extractivism. Furthermore, the article interrogates the role of capital, the state, and the ruling party in mineral resource extraction. Evidence reveals that the state’s support for a “formal mining” sector, which is purported to generate broader economic benefits, has remained elusive. Consequently, the peasantry protested as they faced livelihood uncertainty and acute precarity due to extractivism. Although the state equates these protests to gangsterism, closer scrutiny reveals that they are, in fact, acts of resistance. The resistance in the countryside ranges from socioeconomic to ecological and anti-hegemonic protests. The struggles are organised along inter- and intra-class lines. The dynamics of resistance provide valuable lessons for agrarian struggles against exclusionary resource extraction regimes in a post-independence developing country context. Additionally, the article challenges us to rethink the framing of resistance and extractivism in contemporary times as ongoing and dynamic processes that often escape the scholarly gaze.

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