Introduction

The study of settlement and resettlement schemes attracts researchers from a wide range of social science disciplines. Indeed, Chambers (1969: 12) once described the field as something of ‘an academic no-man's-land’. Increasingly, however, human geographers are assuming an important role in the investigation of several programmes of population resettlement and their associated implications. Recent contributions by geographers include work on the resettlement of reservoirevacuees in Thailand (Lightfoot 1978; 1979); the impact of Algeria's programme of regroupement (Sutton, 1977; Sutton and Lawless, 1978); spontaneous agricultural resettlement in Ethiopia (Wood, 1982); and the special problems of resettlement schemes for refugees in Africa (Rogge, 1981; 1982). Irrespective of the actual causes of resettlement, whether stemming from new dam/water schemes or military counter-insurgency operations, the process of relocation is one which inevitably results in considerable stress and trauma for the peoples involved. In particular, studies emphasize the adjustments that must be borne by resettled communities as a consequence of a disruption in social relations and possibly the loss of economic and social assets (Sutton, 1977).

During the past two decades major programmes of population removal and resettlement have occurred throughout the sub-continent of Southern Africa. The regional struggles for decolonization and African majority rule, the experience of post-independence civil strife and flight from apartheid contributed a flow of almost one million refugees (Hart and Rogerson, 1982). To this international migration flow must be added an even larger stream of ‘internal’ refugees in Southern Africa.