The Endogenous Reintegration of Post-Conflict Angola Society (Special Topic “Rethinking Localities of Rural Development in Angola”)

Abstract

After the Angola war ended in 2002, particularly in eastern rural areas, many refugees who returned from Zambia through repatriation. However, studies have not clarified how the refugees called Mbunda people settled in a rural village and started new lives, forming relationships with people who went through diverse experiences under poor development facilities. Therefore, this study clarifies the returned farmers socio-economic stability as endogenous reintegration of the Mbunda people after their repatriation to post-war Angola. Since they returned, the Mbunda have been on the move, hosted by their kin, chiefs, and strangers who settled in rural villages by setting up their residential unit called limbo; they have sought the help of humanitarian organisation and national development programmes to settle and achieve autonomous food acquisition based on agriculture in rural villages. The returners also coexist with migrants and former soldiers with disabilities. Furthermore, when the Mbunda people returned, they relied heavily on the chief, who was educated in Portuguese, and an former MPLA soldier, who helped collaborate the national development in the rural area. Thus, this study clarifies that Mbunda reintegration has been characterised not by national frameworks but by the diversified social relationships among people who came from different backgrounds.