Making Ends Meet at the Margins? Grappling with Economic Crisis and Belonging in Beitbridge Town, Zimbabwe

Authors

Rekopantswe Mate
DOI: https://doi.org/10.57054/codesria.pub.256

Synopsis

Dakar, CODESRIA, 2005, 44 p., ISBN 2-86978-152-0

In this fascinating study Rekopantswe shows how neoliberalism has brought far-reaching social change in Zimbabwe, a situation made worse by other factors such as HIV and AIDS which have created unprecedented desperation, poverty and helplessness. A consequence of this is that people are more aware of identity and deploy it to define access to resources and to elbow out those that they perceive to be different from them. However, as the study demonstrates, in their day-to-day interactions, people do not seem able to make connections between what is happening locally and the international situation, and as a result blame their neighbours for their misfortunes. This perpetuates social tension and increases the potential for conflict. This is indeed refreshing, insightful, empirically grounded and gender conscious analysis of the situation of those at the margins of plenty.

 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Rekopantswe Mate

lectures at the University of Zimbabwe, Department of Sociology. Her research interests hover around issues of identities in societies going through a lot of socio-economic change such as present-day Zimbabwe. She is currently doing research on youth sexuality in the face of HIV and AIDS looking at how youths perceive and respond to this scourge in the face of socio-economic crises.

References

Alund, A., 1999, 'Feminism, Multiculturalism and Essentialism', in Yuval-Davies,N. and Werbner, P., eds., Women,Citizenship and Di.fference, London: Zed Books.

Assiter, A, 1999,'Citizenship Revisited', in Yuval-Davis, N and Werbner, P., eds., Women, Citizenship and Difference, London: Zed Books, pp 41-53.

Auslander, M., 1993, 'Open the Wombs!': The Symbolic Politics of Modem Ngoni Witchfinding', in Comaroff, J. and Comaroff, J., eds., Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa, Illinois: Chicago Univer­

sity Press.

Barnes, T. and Win, E., 1992, To Live a Better Life, Harare: Baobab Books. Bames, T., 1992, 'The Fight for the Control of African Women's Mobility in Colo­nial Zimbabwe, 1900-1939', in Signs, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp586-608.

Bauman, Z.,1997, 'The Making and Unmaking of Strangers', in Werbner, P. and Modood, T., eds., Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multicultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-racism, London: Zed Books.

CCJP, 1997, Breaking the Silence and Building True Peace: A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and Midlands 1980 to 1988, Harare: CCJP/ Legal Resources Foundation.

Cesarani, D. and Fulbrook, M.,1996, 'Introduction', in Cesarani, D. and Fulbrook, M., eds., Citizenship, Nationality and Migration in Europe, London: Routledge, ppl-14.

Chant, S., 2000, 'Men in Crisis? Reflection on Masculinity, Work and Family in North West Costa Rica', in The European Journal of Development Research, Vol. 12, No. 2.

Chikovore, J. et al., 2002, 'Denial and Violence: Paradoxes in Men's Perspectives to Premarital Sex and Pregnancy in Rural Zimbabwe', Umea University, Sweden.

Comaroff, J., and J., 2001, 'Nurturing the Nation: Aliens, Apocalypse and the Post-colonial State', in Social Identities, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp233-265.

Connell, R. W., 1998, 'Masculinities and Globalisation', in Men and Masculinities,Vol.1, No. 1.

Dzingirai, V., 1996, 'Every Man Must Resettle Where he Wants': The Politics of Settlement in the Context of Community Wildlife Management Programme in Binga, Zimbabwe', in Zambezia, Vol. 23, No 1.

Fisiy, C. and Geshiere, P., 1996, 'Witchcraft, Violence and Identity: Different Trajectories in Post-colonial Cameroon', in Werbner, Rand Ranger, T., eds., Postcolonial Identities in Africa, London: Zed Books.

Friedman, J., 1996,'Being in the World: Globalisation and Localization', in Featherstone, M., ed., Global Culture, London: Sage Publications.

Friedman, J., 1997, 'Global Crises, the Struggle for Cultural Identity and Intellectual Porkbarrelling: Cosmopolitans versus Locals, Ethnies and Nationals in an Era of De-hegemonisation', in Werbner, P. and Modood, T., eds., Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multicultural Identities and the Politics of Anti­ racism, London: Zed Books.

FHI, 2003, Corridors of Hope, www.fhi.org (accessed in October 2003). Geshiere, P., 2001, 'Liberalisation, Belonging and the Village in Africa', in Andersson, J.and Breusers, M., eds., Kinship Structures and Enterprising Actors: Anthropological Essays on Development, The Netherlands: Wageningen Uni­ versity.

Gaidzanwa, R. B., 'Voting with their Feet: Migrant Zimbabwean Nurses and Doctors in the Era of Structural Adjustment', Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstutet.

Gray, C., 1998, 'Cultivating Citizenship through Xenophobia in Gabon, 1960- 1995', in Africa Today, Vol. 45, No.3-4, pp389-410.

Hammar, A., 2001, 'The Day of Burning': Eviction and Reinvention in the Margins of Northwest Zimbabwe', in Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 1, No.4, ppSS0-574.

Harnischfeger, J., 2004, 'Sharia and Control over Territory: Conflict Between 'Settlers' and 'Indigenes' in Nigeria', in African Affairs, Vol. 103, pp143-52.

Jeater, D.,1993, Marriage, Perversion and Power: TheConstruction of Moral Discourses in Southern Rhodesia, 1894-1930, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Kellner, D., 1992, 'Popular Culture and the Construction of Postmodern Identities', in Lash, S. and Friedman, J., eds., Modernity and Identity, Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Blackwell Publishers, pp 141-177.

Kimmel, M. S., 1998, 'Patriarchy's Second Coming as Masculine Renewal', in Claussen, D. S., ed., Standing on the Promise: Promise Keepers and the Revival of Manhood, Ohio, The Pilgrim Press.

Lister, R., 1997, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives, London: Macmillan.

Madzudzo, E. and Dzingirai, V., 1995, 'A Comparative Study of the Implications of Ethnicity on CAMPFIRE in Bulilimamangwe and Binga, Zimbabwe', in Zambezia, Vol. 22, No 1, pp 25-42.

Melucci, A., 1997, 'Identity and Difference in a Globalized World', in Werbner, P. and Modood, T., eds., Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multicultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-racism, London: Zed Books.

Moghadam, V.,1994, 'Introduction: Women and Identity Politics in Theoretical and Comparative Perspective', in Moghadam, V., eds., Identity, Politics and Women: Cultural Reassertion of Feminisms in International Perspective, Westview Press.

Ncube, W., 1989, Family Law in Zimbabwe, Harare: Legal Resources Foundation,. Niehaus, I. A.,1993, 'Witchhunting and Political Legitimacy: Continuity and Change in Green Valley, Lebowa, 1939-91', in Africa, Vol. 63, No.1.

Nyambara, P., 2001, 'The Closing Frontier: Agrarian Change, Immigrants and the 'Squatter Menace' in Gokwe, 1980-1990s', in Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp534-549.

Nyamnjoh, F.B., 2002, 'Local Attitudes Towards Citizenship and Foreigners in Botswana: An Appraisal of Recent PressStories', in Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp 754-775.

Nyarnnjoh, F.B., 2004, 'Globalisation and Popular Disenchantment in Africa', in Mbaku, J.M. and Saxena, S.C., eds., Africa at the Crossroads: Between Regionalism and Globalisation, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.

Nyamnjoh, F.B., Durham, D., and Fokwang, J., 2002, 'The Domestication of Haïr and Modernized Consciousness in Cameroon: A Critique in the Context of Globalisation', in Identity, Culture and Politics: An Afro Asian Dialogue, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp 98-124.

Pettman, J. J., 1999, 'Globalisation and the Gendered Politics of Citizenship', in Yuval-Davis, N. and Werbner, P., eds., Women, Citizenship and Difference, London: Zed Books, pp 207-220.

Potts, D.,1999,'The Impact of Structural Adjustment on Welfare and Livelihoods: An Assessment by the People in Harare, Zimbabwe', in Jones, S. and Nelson, N., eds., Urban Poverty in Africa, London: 1T Publications.

Rutherford, B., 2001, Working on the Margins: Black Workers, White Farmers in Postcolonial Zimbabwe, London/ Harare: Zed Books/Weaver Press.

Schlyter, A., 1999, 'Recycled Inequalities: Youth and Gender in the George Compound, Zambia', Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.

Stitcher, S., 1995, Migrant Labour, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ungar, S., 2001, 'Moral Panic versus Risk Society: The Implication of Changing Sites of Social Anxiety', in British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 52, No. 2, pp271- 291.

Werbner, R., 1995, 'Human Rights and Moral Knowledge: Arguments of Accountability in Zimbabwe', in Strathern, M., ed., Shifting Contexts: Trans­ formation in Anthropological Knowledge, London: Routledge.

Worby, E., 1994, 'Maps, Names and Ethnie Garnes: the Epistemology and Iconography of Colonial Power in Northwestern Zimbabwe', in Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp 371-392.

Downloads

PDF file

Published

July 23, 2005

Series

CODESRIA Books
Copyright (c) 2005 CODESRIA Books Publication System