Zambezia (2000), XXVII (i).BOOK REVIEWSSites of Struggle: Essays in Zimbabwe's Urban History By BrianRaftopoulos and Tsuneo Yoshikuni (eds.), Harare, Weaver Press, 1999,279 pp, ISBN 0 7974 1984 5.Sites of Struggle: Essays in Zimbabwe's Urban History is undoubtedly one ofthe most significant books published on Zimbabwe's socio-economic andpolitical history in recent years. This book is edited by Brian Raftopoulosand Tsuneo Yoshikuni, two scholars with unquestionable scholarlycredentials who have, in the past, produced pioneering work on variousaspects of Zimbabwe's urban social history. The book was published bythe newest player in Zimbabwe's book publishing industry, Weaver Press.It addresses various issues, which have hitherto been neglected byscholars of Zimbabwe's historical past and, thus, fills a gaping hole inZimbabwe's historiography.Numerous studies on the cultural, agrarian, industrial, religious andother types of Zimbabwean history exist, but much remains unknownand uninvestigated, about the process of urbanisation in colonialZimbabwe or the constraints and opportunities confronting the urbanAfrican communities, their coping mechanisms and strategies, and thevarious battles they waged in their struggle to retain their dignity and forself-actualisation and control of their own lives during the colonial period.The impression was thus created that, apart from some trade unionactivity and formally organised political movements in the post-SecondWorld War era, there was nothing else of substance happening inZimbabwe's urban areas in the colonial period which merited seriousscholarly analysis.Sites of Struggle corrects such an erroneous impression and showsthat there was a rich ferment of cultural, ideological, political and socialactivities among the African communities in the colonial urban areaswhich helped shape the trajectory of development at both the local,urban level and in the wider national arena. Rather than being helplessvictims of the economic, social and cultural hegemonic power anddominance of colonial settler society, Africans contested the colonialdispensation at every stage. Whether it was the petty-bourgeoisie in pre-1933 Bulawayo who grabbed every opportunity inadvertently andreluctantly offered by colonial capitalism, the Africans re-asserting culturalmorays and practices or adapting cultural traditions to new urban settings,the so-called "middle class" trying to set the norms of respectability andthe contestation to which such efforts gave rise to, or urban communitiesparticipating in new religious institutions or even domestic workers103104 BOOK REVIEWSsubverting the dominant colonial White society from within, urban Africansconstantly strove to carve out and control their own space and lives andto blunt and mitigate the impact of colonial policies and practices as bestthey could under the circumstances. It is these and other issues pertainingto the urban African experience that the book documents and analyses.The book is organised into eleven chapters and contains chapters bysome of the leading scholars in urban social, political, cultural, religious,labour and gender history, among others. In Chapter 1, Stephen Thorntonanalyses the struggles and experiences of the African petty-bourgeoisiein Bulawayo as they fought to compete with the more established colonialcapitalist businesses in the first quarter century of colonial rule. Hedemonstrates that some Africans, especially women, were able to seizethe few opportunities that were opened up by colonial capitalism andthus acquired a relative degree of independence from wage labour.Thornton argues that these groups initially hoped that they would beable to participate in the evolving colonial political and economicdispensation but soon found that the dominant colonial society had noplace for them. It was then that they turned their backs on the colonialsystem and began to work with other discontented groups to struggleagainst the European administration. The entrenchment of segregation,especially following the report of the 1925 Morris Carter Commission,gradually eroded what economic opportunities had been available to theAfricans in the past and eventually eradicated the African petty-bourgeoisie in Bulawayo.Similarly, Timothy Scarnecchia and Terri Barnes' chapters focus onthe gender aspects of the colonial urban scene. The former analyses thedebates that surrounded the efforts to promote "respectability" amongurban women in Harari African Township and highlights the tensionsbetween middle class families, who considered themselves to be "stable",and single migrant workers whom they regarded as "unstable" and fromwhom they consistently tried to distance themselves. The latter exploresthe complex and sometimes contradictory attitudes of the state and theAfrican males to women's presence in the city, the constraints which thewomen encountered as well as the opportunities which they tookadvantage of despite the generally unfriendly legal and social climatewithin which they operated. Raftopoulos and Yoshikuni's contributionsanalyse "the changing effects of rural-urban relations on the urbanprocess" and examine how changes in the rural areas impacted ondevelopments in the city. Chapters by Kaarsholm, Hallencreutz and Papeexplore urban culture and politics in Bulawayo, religion in the city andthe role of domestic workers in the liberation struggle, respectively.Sites of Snuggle is as impressive in the quality of the research andanalysis which went into the chapters contained in it as it is surprisinglyBOOK REVIEWS 105diverse and pleasantly comprehensive. As anyone who has ever had toedit a wide variety of divergent papers to produce a single volume bookwill know, it is not always easy to make sure that all papers complimenteach other well and that the final product is both thematically andstylistically coherent. The selection and editorial problems thatRaftopolous and Yoshikuni faced must have been considerable, giventhat the book deals with, in their words,the spaces created for different groups of Africans at different periodsin the urbanisation process; the contradictory responses of the colonialstate to the problem of the stabilisation and reproduction of labour;the relationship between ethnicity, the labour process and differentialrelations to rural production processes, the effects of rural-urbanlinkages on labour organisation and on the broader struggles for theimagining of national identity; the effects of regional labour supplies onurban structures and forms of urban organisation; the struggles overthe mapping of the city along racial, class and gender lines; and finallythe gendered nature of the colonial city and urban struggles (pp. 1-2).Fortunately, the editors were able to surmount the problems posedby the diversity of the topics covered by the contributions to produce abook that not only has a coherent thematic unity but one which is bothstylistically consistent and, to borrow an American expression, "hangstogether" extremely well.Thus, despite the diversity of topics covered, indeed, because of it,Sites of Struggle is a very rich and informative book which is impressiveby any measure of assessment. It is a welcome addition to the field ofurban social history in general and the urban social history of theZimbabwean city in the colonial period in particular. By making the veryrich urban colonial history of Zimbabwe available to the public,Raftopoulos and Yoshikuni deserve to be congratulated for blazing a newtrail which should stimulate both experienced and new scholars of theZimbabwean past to probe further into some of the historicaldevelopments discussed in the book, to critique analyses and viewpointsexpressed in it and to advance further the frontiers of historical knowledgethrough new research. This will provide a corpus of knowledge whichwill complement the already rich fund of historical knowledge that hasbeen produced by generations of scholars in the areas of Zimbabwe'srural, economic, religious, cultural and political history and thus enhancethe understanding of the country's evolution and development.Sites of Struggle has already made a good beginning by illuminatingand deepening as well as challenging conventional knowledge aboutvarious historical developments in Zimbabwe. For instance, John Lunn'sre-interpretation of the meaning of the 1948 General Strike brings a newand refreshing perspective to a subject about which much has already106 BOOK REVIEWSbeen written and raises new questions which demand further investigation,while Raftopoulos and Yoshikuni's chapters clearly suggest the need formore nuanced analyses of rural-urban relations and interactions andtheir role in the development of Zimbabwean nationalist politics. On hispart, John Pape enjoins scholars to re-visit their understanding of themuch-neglected and marginalised domestic workers who have tended, inthe past, to be treated as victims and "loyal servants" who passivelyaccepted their lot under the colonial dispensation rather than as actorswho, not only subverted the colonial status quo from within but who alsotook enormous risks to support the liberation struggle. Thus, by venturinginto new areas of research and analysis and/or re-examining and re-interpreting already known evidence, the contributors to Sites of Strugglenot only call for the revision of conventional wisdom about historicaldevelopments in Zimbabwe but also point to new vistas of research forscholars working on the Zimbabwean socio-political and economicexperience. They have, therefore, made a notable and very welcomecontribution to scholarship.In addition, both the editors and the contributors have produced abook which, despite the serious nature of the subjects it deals with, iswritten in jargon-free and easily accessible language whose style ofpresentation is aesthetically pleasing and intellectually satisfying. Equallyto be congratulated are the publishers, Weaver Press, for facilitating thedissemination of such important and pertinent scholarship and doing soin a well-packaged and meticulously edited book which anyone would beproud to have on their book shelves.Sites of Struggle should be of interest to both the serious scholar andresearcher who has an interest in urbanisation studies in general and thehistory of Zimbabwean urbanisation in particular, as well as the casualreader who wants to understand the historical forces that shaped thedevelopment of Zimbabwe. The diversity of topics covered, the impressiveresearch that went into the writing of each chapter and the highlyimpressive analytical rigour with which the contributors approachedtheir subject will impress anyone who reads the book.The book should also be extremely useful to urban planners, thosewho work in the social services sector, educationists, those interested ina gendered understanding of history and, most importantly, policy makers,at both national and municipal levels, who will find their understandingand appreciation of current problems and tensions in the cities enhancedby reference to the history of the colonial urban experience. As theeditors of the book rightly point out, housing, health, transport and otherproblems colonial administrators and policy makers had to grapple withcontinue to "face their post-colonial counterparts, but in an exacerbatedform" (p. 13).BOOK REVIEWS 107To the above categories of readers and the many international readerswho have an interest in Zimbabwe's social, economic, ideological andcultural history and whose understanding of the history of the urbancommunities in their home countries will be enriched by reading Sites ofStruggle, this book is highly recommended.University of Zimbabwe A. S. MLAMBO