Abstract
The patterns of alluvial diamond mining in Chiadzwa, are profoundly related to colonial forms of mineral production since 1895. I embedded this dissertation within a broader governance and power analysis to develop some understanding of post-colonial economic, social, environmental rights, and policy frameworks deployed in Chiadzwa. By empirically deploying governance and power, this qualitative research assumed the duality of commoditized geologies as means of accumulation by the elite and deprivation for the poor villagers. Data for the research was solicited through interviews and focus groups from villagers, traditional leaders, civil society organizations and key institutions and state agencies dealing with diamond mining. The responses of these actors and the related secondary data are presented in three manuscripts, on governance and power, livelihoods, and the application of the environmental impact assessments in the mining area and its implications for procedural and distributive justice. The research established serious flaws in the decision making processes and absence of robust institutional mechanisms in the diamond complex expressed through land dispossession, opaque mining permitting and alienation of the mining communities in key decisions affecting them. The expropriation of peasant land and the allocation of small resettlement plots, the fracture of the extended family due to relocation and the ecological damage of mining changed the socio-natures of Chiadzwa and exacerbated the vulnerability of traditionally poor communities. The concept of socio-nature by Swingedouw is a <itaics>political ecological term defining the role of power in shaping the nature-society dialectic. In its theorization, nature is co-produced by social (in)actions and natural processes together. Decision making on environmental impact assessments (EIAs) lacked transparency and legitimacy as villagers were only consulted when companies and the state had particular vested interests. The blurred merger between the security state and corporate investors complicated the mechanisms for accountability. In view of the limitations and restrictions imposed by the participation of the military in diamond mining, the research recommends some deliberate separation between the interests of capital and the state if the goals of mineral-anchored development are to be met.<italics>