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This article invites historians to think more critically about the language, narratives, and tropes historians use to identify, describe, and explain processes of change. By doing so, we raise questions about the possibility of historicizing ideas and experiences of change. The suitability of historians' descriptive and explanatory tools and frameworks for understanding one of the most important aims of historical scholarship is often very limited. We ponder the extent to which historians' identification of historical change correlates with how historical actors imagined, experienced, and identified change. Starting from the perspective of the latter enables us to examine how far "change" exists prior to its embedding in the (sometimes conflicting) narratives, discourses, and practices of contemporaries. This article seeks to develop the concepts of "critical junctures" and "discursive thresholds." While both concepts are used in social science research and literary studies, they have rarely been paired together. We combine them because they help relate the importance of events to change and the discourses surrounding them. As a case study, this article looks at a magazine titled Property and Finance, which was published in Southern Rhodesia (1956–77) and edited by Wilfred Brooks. Brooks's editorials and political commentary offer an opportunity to consider broad questions of change, imagined futures, and discursive engagements with the political and social developments underway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) emerged from the smouldering ashes of the intra-party violence that followed its break away from the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) in 1963 and the clampdown by Rhodesian authorities. Its structures were barely consolidated when it was banned in 1964, and its efforts in exile suffered a crisis of recognition, as the key sponsors of African liberation movements continued to view it as an ‘inauthentic’ and ‘separatist’ movement. This article traces the structures and strategies that ZANU used to manoeuvre through these obstacles to become a fully-fledged liberation movement by the mid 1970s. It pays particular attention to the work of individuals and organisations that facilitated this transformation by tracing a wide range of regional and international networks, including military, financial, humanitarian and diplomatic roles. The main sources are the growing corpus of oral reminiscences and published memoirs of the main players. It argues that ZANU was a beneficiary of the contradictions in the international solidarity movement. As it grew in stature, however, its own internal contradictions as a movement threatened to consume it and render the efforts and sacrifices of its exiles worthless. Yet, as the war escalated, these exile networks were the very basis on which an effective diplomatic offensive was launched, which complemented the successes that ZANU had in the battlefield. This aspect of the ZANU war effort is often conveniently omitted by ZANU itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Southern Rhodesian experiment with the alternative vote (AV) is not well known among electoral specialists. Yet this was the origin of the better known claim that such a preferential voting system might ameliorate ethnic tensions in deeply divided societies. AV was one among several institutional innovations deployed by a reformist white settler government in Southern Rhodesia in response to the emergence of the African nationalist movement. Despite its usage with a highly restrictive franchise, the system delivered a preference transfer-dependent victory for a centrist government that aimed to accommodate African political aspirations in 1958. Yet that outcome was not repeated in 1962 or 1965, when Ian Smith’s Rhodesia Front instead obtained office, declared independence from the United Kingdom and – once freed of restraints from London – dismantled electoral devices aimed at encouraging inter-communal vote transfers. This article examines the debates about Southern Rhodesian electoral reform in the late 1950s and early 1960s, explores the working of accommodation-oriented devices at the elections of 1958, 1962 and 1965, and contests whether viable political settlements can be assembled in such contexts simply by institutional reform aimed at encouraging ‘moderation’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On the surface, Southern Rhodesia was a melting pot into which people of European origin were absorbed, mixed with one another and forged new identities. In reality, Rhodesia failed to permit non-British Europeans such as Poles, their fair share of the Rhodesian dream. Behind this lay not only British Rhodesians’ self-perception of their superiority to other Europeans but also the fear that other European immigrants might have communist connections. The British placed different white ethnic groups on a scale based on their perceived distance from white British cultural and political values. Polish people found themselves near the bottom of the scale because British whites suspected them of being communists or Jews and of holding different cultural values, such as greater liberality about race relations. British Rhodesian discrimination against the Poles was revealed especially in the reception Polish refugees received upon arriving in Rhodesia during the Second World War, evidenced in the placement of refugee settlements and the provision of social services, as well as discrimination in the employment sector. Although ethnic prejudice lay at the centre of Rhodesian discrimination, the immigration policy and treatment of the Poles also reflected conflicting concerns. On the one hand the Rhodesian government had an obligation to accommodate war refugees on behalf of the Imperial government, while, on the other hand, they did not want a deluge of non-British whites which might dilute British ethnic purity and spread communist ideas. We examine the nature, application and impact of this discriminatory policy on Polish refugees during and immediately after the Second World War, arguing that ambivalence towards Polish refugees constituted a larger feature of Rhodesian society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on African nationalism and mass nationalism in the 1960s in colonial Zimbabwe, formerly known as Rhodesia. Using oral testimonies, the author focuses on the several non-elite Zimbabwean political activists, including Obed Mutezo, Mordikai Hamutyinei, and Oliver Muvirimi Dizha. The political parties the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SR-ANC), the National Democratic Party (NDP), and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) are also examined.

The article discusses the papers of Rhodesian liberal Diana Mary Mitchell, known as the Mitchell collection, held at the Manuscripts and Archives Department of The University of Cape Town (UCT). It notes that the archive also contains papers concerning several opposition politicians in Rhodesia in the mid- to late-twentieth century, including Morris Hirsch, Pat Bashford, and Allan Savory. The author suggests that the archive is useful for the study of the historical role of women in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe.

The article discusses the early writings of Gahadzikwa Albert (G.A.) Chaza, a police officer who served in the British South Africa Police (BSAP) force in Southern Rhodesia, or Zimbabwe, from 1936 to 1957. It comments on his writings in the BSAP publication "Mapolisa," which often stressed education, professional development, and progress. The author analyzes Chaza as a moderate and a loyalist, contrasting his early writings with his book "Bhurakuwacha: The Story of a Black Policeman in Colonial Southern Rhodesia."