In the immediate aftermath of Zimbabwe’s Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP) experiment, radical changes that completely redefined life in rural areas appear to have taken place. The demise of the worker–peasantry was finally achieved. Using an extended case of worker–peasant communities in north-western Zimbabwe’s Lupane District, the article examines the changing dynamics in rural areas. It argues that the world on which the worker–peasantry was premised had crumbled – the relationship between the rural and urban changed while complex processes that had long assured the survival of rural households had completely broken down. This was a new space and time where the fact that certain livelihood practices and relationships no longer applied led to the destruction of old social formations and the creation of new ones, and was certainly not at odds with Tomlinson’s proposal for social engineering on the basis of “separate development” through the “betterment” of peasant farming and industry in rural areas, albeit with some modifications.
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