Biography
Dr Freedom Mazwi is a senior lecturer and PhD coordinator in the Department of Development Studies at the University of Zambia. He has also held positions as a senior researcher and project manager at the Sam Moyo African Institute for African Studies, as a lecturer at the University of Cape Town, and as a visiting scholar at the University Of Bonn, Germany (2025) and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, South Africa (2022). His areas of specialization include the land and agrarian question(s), ecological questions, and the political economy of development in the Global South. The following publications are among his body of work: The Political Economy of Contract Farming in Zimbabwe (2022); and four volumes that he co-edited: Capital Penetration and the Peasantry in Southern and Eastern Africa. Neoliberal Restructuring (2022); Farming and Working Under Contract: Peasants and Workers in Global Agricultural Value Systems (2022); Chinese Investments in Africa: Its Contradictory and Variegated Character in Relation to Land, Agriculture, Mining, and Infrastructure (2024); and Revolution and Liberation: Struggles of the Working People Today (2025). Dr Mazwi holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. He serves as a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Agrarian South Network, a tricontinental network founded by the late Professor Sam Moyo.
Qualifications:
PhD in Development Studies (UKZN)
MSc in Development Studies (LSU)
BSc in Political Studies (UZ)
Courses taught
DEV 3150 Agriculture, Food Security and Rural Development
DEV 5000 Research Methods in Development Studies
DEV 5012 Political Economy of Contemporary Zambian Society
DEV 5122 Project Management
DEV 5132 Environment, Growth and Sustainable Development
Jha, P., Yeros, P., Chambati, W and Mazwi, F. eds (2022). Farming and Working under Contract: Peasants and Workers in Global Agricultural Value Systems. New Delhi: Tulika Books
Mazwi F., Mudimu, G and Helliker, k. eds (2024). Chinese Investments in Africa: Its Variegated and Contradictory Character in Relation to Land, Agriculture, Mining and Infrastructure. Springer Economic Geography.
Mazwi, F. (2022). The Political Economy of Contract Farming in Zimbabwe. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Mazwi, F., Mudimu, G., and Helliker, K. eds (2022) Capital Penetration and the Well-Being of the Peasantry in Southern and Eastern Africa: Neoliberal Restructuring. Geneva: Springer Nature.
Mazwi, F. (2024). Politics, Profits and Protection: Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry since 1947: By Sibanengi Ncube Makhanda, South Africa: Africa Humanities Association Publications, 2022, 153 pp. ISBN: 978-1-920033-00-2. The Journal of Development Studies, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2024.2401194.
Mazwi, F & Yeros (2023). Zimbabwe’s Command Agriculture. Problems of Planning under Neoliberalism. The Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy
Mazwi, F & Chambati, W (2023). Diversification of sugar production in Zimbabwe: wealth accumulation from below by outgrowers. Canadian Journal of Development Studies.
Mazwi, F. (2022). ‘Joint Ventures’ and Land Rentals in Tobacco: Limitations of Radical Land Reforms in a Neoliberal Economic Environment: The Case of Zvimba, Zimbabwe.” Journal of Southern African Studies
Mazwi,F & Chambati,W. (2022)” “The land belong to us”: ethnic claims over land during Zimbabwe’s land reforms. Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy 11.1
Mazwi, F (2021). “Revisiting the Trimodal Agrarian Structure as a Social Differentiation Analysis Framework in Zimbabwe: A Study”. Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 10-2 page(s): 318-343
Land and agrarian questions
Political economy of development
Social movements
Social policy
2021 - 2022: Digital African Pathways (APP)/BRICS Teaching and Mobility Grant
2021: Visiting Scholar, Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), South Africa