Comparing communal areas and new resettlements in Zimbabwe, I: An introduction to a short blog series, II: people and places, III: land and agriculture, IV: accumulating assets and investing in the land, V: farm employment, off-farm income earning and ...

Asks are people better off in the new resettlements, a decade after they had moved, compared to the communal areas? To probe this question in more depth, in 2012 Blasio Mavedzenge, Felix Murimbarimba and Jacob Mahenehene and Ian Scoones undertook a survey in some nearby communal areas in parallel with the resurvey of the land reform sites. A complex story emerges in these 5 blogs showing that the resettlements are not simply an extension of the communal lands, but are different on a variety of fronts, with important implications for the future.