African Harare, 1890-1925: Labor Migrancy and an Emerging Urbaqn Community (1)

Abstract

Whilst there have been relatively intensive studies, both sociological and historical, into the African "urban question" for mid-century Zimbabwe, its earlier phases, shortly after the encounter of African societies with colonial capitalism, remain largely a virgin territory as a field of research. This study is an attempt to redress the imbalance by investigating the structure and development of the African community in early Salisbury. It focuses especially on (1) the conjuncture of the advent of mass labor migrancy by the early 1920s and the heightened collective consciousness of migrants in the form of labor protests and mutual aid associations, and (2) the contrast of two emerging African neighborhoods--the inner Salisbury, largely alien and marginalized, and the outer Salisbury, largely indigenous and "respectable.