‘Hungry children don't ask fathers for food’: Gender, security and the COVID pandemic in a Kenya gold mining area

Abstract

This paper contributes to the emerging research on COVID-19 pandemic effects on the artisanal and small-scale gold mining sector in sub-Sahara Africa. Drawing on the results from a 2022 rapid research visit to a gold mining area in western Kenya, where the authors have been carrying out a multi-year study since 2015, we explore women's distinctly gendered experiences of the mobility 'lock downs’ imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19. Our discussion, informed by feminist analysis of social reproduction, considers how women's gendered roles in the household - clothing, feeding and caring for their children and families - and in mine sites, increased their exposure to police violence and food insecurity. We examine our results in relation to findings from the World Bank-funded Delve surveys (2020; 2022), to reflect on the methodological implications, and future research directions, for more fully exploring gendered differences of security in times of ‘crisis’.