2023 Volume 2023 Issue 103 Pages 27-40
This paper examines the agricultural innovation achieved by the Mbunda people who fled war-torn Angola and settled in neighboring Zambia, and then returned to Angola recently. Based on the field research, the study focuses not only on the introduction of new agricultural techniques per se, but also the spread of new methods of trading crops which eventually contributed to reducing the existing economic disparities among villagers. Mbunda refugees have always attempted to stabilize their unsettled livelihood by introducing new crops and agricultural techniques such as cassava (in colonial Angola), new cassava planting methods (in Zambia) and maize (in post-conflict Angola). It is notable that these innovations were eventually shared by many villagers who benefitted from the novel agricultural methods and/ or crops, as can be seen in the case of new marketing methods for cassava products and the introduction of an early maturing variety of maize obtained through humanitarian aid. Such innovation in agricultural techniques and marketing methods were also related to the changing pattern of the Mbunda's basic residential unit (limbo), which secured the villagers' access to living space as well as farmland. Originally composed solely of matrilineal kin in addition to the women who married into it, the membership of the limbo was opened up to include non-relative outsiders, creating opportunities for an expanded population to stabilize their precarious livelihood.
