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Lawrence Tshuma (1961-1999)

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
DOI10.1177/096466390000900101
Published date01 March 2000
AuthorJulio Faundez
Date01 March 2000
Subject MatterArticles
/tmp/tmp-18PNczMktYUGTa/input 01 Faundez (jl/d) 1/2/00 3:17 pm Page 5
LAWRENCE TSHUMA
(1961–1999)*
LAWRENCE WASborn in 1961 in Matabeleland, Southern Rhodesia,
19 years before Zimbabwe emerged as an independent state. His early
education was interrupted by the war of national liberation and as a
consequence he started university at the age of 23. After a brilliant career as
an undergraduate at the University of Zimbabwe, where he was awarded a
first class degree and won a string of academic prizes, including the Joint Law
Society Prize for the Best Bachelor of Law Final Year Student, he came to
London to do an LLM. In London he specialised in international banking
and finance and upon obtaining his LLM returned to Zimbabwe to take up
a post of lecturer in law at the University of Zimbabwe.
I met Lawrence in 1992 when he came to Warwick to do a PhD on land
tenure in Zimbabwe and I had the privilege of being his supervisor. After
completing his PhD, he was awarded a grant by the Ford Foundation to
prepare his dissertation at the Land Tenure Centre of the University of Wis-
consin-Madison. Characteristically, he concentrated all his energies in this
project and his book A Matter of (In)Justice: Law, State and the Agrarian
Question in Zimbabwe, was published in Harare in 1997 by SAPES Books.
Lawrence was deeply committed to his intellectual work. His personal and
emotional involvement in his research is reflected in his choice of topics. His
research on the land tenure system in Zimbabwe was inspired by his experi-
ence as a victim of colonialism and racism. His more recent work on govern-
ance and financial regulation in Africa was prompted by his awareness of the
shortcomings of the current neo-liberal model of development advocated by
international financial institutions. On these and other topics, Lawrence had
deep convictions which he expressed with clarity and passion, but never in a
dogmatic or intolerant manner.
Some years ago, in 1996, he was appointed Programme Legal Counsel
at the...

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