The political economy of informal dog breeding businesses in Harare’s high-density suburbs, Zimbabwe, 1990-2019.

Abstract

This paper examines the emergence of informal dog breeding businesses in Zimbabwe’s high-density suburbs between 1990 and 2019. It uses the dog breeding practices of the working-classes and informal workers as an entry point into the global dog historiography that overly focuses on the dog breeding practices of the ruling classes and of the middle classes in Western Europe and in North America. It, thus, provides an animal-sensitive assessment of the Zimbabwean crisis drawing from archival sources, newspapers and from digital ethnography. It argues that the dog breeding practices of the working-classes and informal workers in Harare’s high-density suburbs avails a global south dog history that is not overly influenced by Western Kennel Club rules and breeding standards. The paper also focuses on the various types of dogs that gained popularity at different times owing to Zimbabwe’s changing political-economy during the period under review. Informal dog breeders bred different dog breeds at different times in reaction to the fashionable trends to solve evolving urban security needs as a result of changing urban sub-cultures. These informal dog breeding businesses created strong downstream and upstream business ventures that enabled successful dog breeders to attain breadwinner statuses during the Zimbabwean crisis. It concludes by showing that human-dog relations changed during the Zimbabwean crisis in Harare’s high-density suburbs.