Abstract
Since the onset of the Second World War, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) has undergone a significant transformation in its mining industry, shifting from a focus on precious minerals to an emphasis on base and pegmatite minerals. This transition was driven by the growing global demand for minerals such as chromite, lithium, tantalite, and beryllium, which became integral to the armament and aviation industries across Europe, America, and Asia. In response, an intensive search was launched for these previously neglected minerals, prompting a reorientation of mining efforts away from traditional centres, such as gold mining areas, toward more peripheral regions like the southern part of Mberengwa District, which harboured essential resources like chromite, tantalite, lithium, and beryllium. Geologically, southern Mberengwa is distinguished by the Mwezha Greenstone Range, rich in pegmatite minerals, including lithium, emeralds, and tantalite; beryllium, tin, manganese, and green slates. Using evidence from ethnography and newspapers, this thesis analyses the history of artisanal and small-scale pegmatite and base minerals in Mberengwa District from 1939 to 2024. This thesis utilises the concept of materiality to examine the entangled nature of mining processes in Mberengwa. While there are debates among scholars on the concept of materiality, where some scholars emphasise the significance of things/objects (Latour 1999), and others stress the significance of humans (Gell 1998), this thesis adopts the current argument that emphasises the relationality between things and humans in understanding mining processes in Mberengwa. This materiality concept helps to examine the entangled nature of mining processes in Mberengwa, highlighting the challenges of isolating any single mining process since the Second World War. It advances four key arguments: first, that the southern part of Mberengwa was characterised by a series of mineral booms and bursts; second, that these mineral rushes was shaped by global, regional, and domestic demand; third, that the geological materiality of the region led to the emergence of a mobile artisanal mining workforce, whose expertise shifts fluidly in response to market fluctuations, complicating the categorisation of artisanal miners; and fourth, that government strategies to support Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) were more effective in the northern regions where companies were willing to offer their loss-making mines to support the government policy than in the south where companies were not willing to offer their profit-making mines.