The negotiated settlement: faith, nationalism, and women’s political imagination in Zimbabwe’s decolonisation, 1965–1979

Mutswiri, S. (2026) The negotiated settlement: faith, nationalism, and women’s political imagination in Zimbabwe’s decolonisation, 1965–1979. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: 10.48683/1926.00131125

Abstract/Summary

This thesis re-examines the contested transition to Zimbabwean independence by centring on the overlooked role of gender, faith, and political imagination during the final years of settler colonial rule between 1965 and 1979. It explores how African women, particularly members of the Rukwadzano Rwe Wadzimai (RRW) within the United Methodist Church (UMC) in Manicaland, mobilised moral authority and cultural practice to pursue peace and self improvement amid the turbulence of war. Drawing on eighteen original oral history interviews conducted by the author, the thesis uses Rukwadzano members as a case study to demonstrate how a distinct gendered political theology emerged among UMC women in Manicaland. Recent historiography has shifted towards an emphasis on political imagination as a means of conceptualising decolonisation not as a linear or triumphalist narrative, but as a complex and contested historical process. This thesis utilises Umbowo, the UMC newspaper as a critical site of African Christian modernity to demonstrate how women used print culture to negotiate political belonging. It interrogates the intersection of gender and faith to excavate and analyse African political discourse. In doing so, it challenges liberation historiography that privileges militarised heroism. By examining how communities assumed responsibility toward others, this thesis advances an original interpretation of Zimbabwe’s transition to independence. Decolonisation was experienced as a gendered moral project as much as a struggle for political sovereignty, in which modernity functioned as a vehicle through which women articulated political claims grounded in moral authority and civic responsibility. By analysing key constitutional milestones, the Pearce Commission (1971), the Internal Settlement (1978), and the Lancaster House negotiations (1979), the thesis situates women’s political activism within broader debates of nation and nationalism currently missing in historiography. In the existing scholarship on the final negotiated settlement following the protracted Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), the role of liberal nationalists has received insufficient attention. Drawing on new archival evidence, this thesis addresses that gap by recasting British priorities and planning in the decolonisation process. It foregrounds the significance of liberal nationalism in the aftermath of the Rhodesian government’s 1965 constitutional rebellion and demonstrates how Britain regained the legal and legislative authority required to execute the final and unequivocal decolonisation of Zimbabwe in 1979.

Item Type	Thesis (PhD)
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/131125
Identification Number/DOI	10.48683/1926.00131125
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Humanities > History
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item