Abstract
Zimbabwe’s public policy trajectory has courted global attention specifically through
its redistributive policies that include the land reform programme – which was
implemented in the first decade of independence; and the black economic
empowerment programme, which was implemented in the 1990s through affirmative
action initiatives until the enactment of the comprehensive Indigenisation and
Economic Empowerment Act in 2007. Notably, indigenisation has been the rallying
ideology undergirding the state’s redistribution agenda since the 1980s. Over time,
the understanding and application of the concept have raised serious questions on
aspects of autochthony, nativity, belonging, and citizenship. Evidence on the ground
suggests that the concept has been deliberately twisted, highly politicised, and
manipulated as an instrument of exclusionary politics played at racial, political, class,
and nationality levels, with the effect of calculatively side-lining potential beneficiaries,
as well as facilitating the expropriation and dispossession of critical resources and
assets from perceived “foreigners” in the country. Politicisation of indigenisation,
economic empowerment, and autochthony has thrust clientelism, cronyism, loyalty,
and political correctness as major criteria for accessing benefits of ownership and
control of key strategic resources such as land and minerals, as well as shareholding
in economic empowerment deals.