The interplay between urban agriculture and spatial (In) justice: Case study analysis of Harare, Zimbabwe

The debate on urban agriculture in African cities has focused on the environmental consequences and the livelihood support to the urban poor. These debates are primarily centered on the urban policies and plans that largely fail to integrate urban agriculture, albeit its importance. This study expands on this scholarship but focuses on the interplay of urban agriculture and spatial justice in Harare. We argue that urban planning in Harare is premised on classism and perpetuates spatial segregation, which manifests through different land uses in residential suburbs for the low- and high-income suburbs. Using an exploratory phenomenological approach, we interrogate the interplay through in-depth interviews with respondents from three study contexts: Hopley Farm Settlement and two suburbs, Hatfield and Glen-View. The primary data were triangulated with secondary data to increase the validity of the study. The findings challenge the common assumption that urban agriculture is essentially a survival strategy that the urban poor engage in to support their livelihoods. Rather, beyond the subsistence nature of urban agriculture practices among the poor, the current practice in Harare is characterized by a new group of elites who have commodified urban agriculture. Unlike the authorities' restrictive policies and strategies in poor neighborhoods, urban agriculture has been integrated into the official land use plans, becoming an integral land use activity in the affluent suburbs. This study draws attention to a largely overlooked aspect in literature on spatial (in) justice in the Zimbabwean context.