ABSTRACT
All irrigation schemes are fenced off from their tribal trust lands. On the Mvura irrigation scheme the huts of plotholders are situated within the enclosed area and surround the irrigated land on the north, south and south-east. Since government created irrigation schemes to relieve population pressure in tribal areas, and since schemes are built in tribal trust lands, the first plots are generally offered to local people and only when these refuse them are Africans from other areas invited. The plotholders in the two irrigation schemes of Mvura and Zuva differ markedly in their social characteristics. Plotholders on the two irrigation schemes interact with their tribal neighbours in the political, social and economic spheres. Yet the people in the two schemes place different values on these three spheres. Zuva plotholders are primarily concerned with political relations because where two distinct tribal groups compete for leadership, enmeshment with the tribal system is intense.
