“We Are Working for Nothing”: Livelihoods and Gender Relations in Rural Zimbabwe, 2000-06.

AbstractThis article draws on interviews with women resettlement farmers in Wedza District, Zimbabwe, to trace changes in livelihood strategies and gender relations from 2000 to 2006. The research indicates a shrinking number of viable options for livelihoods, and the severe erosion of formerly critical activities. Thewomen interviewed see increases inmarital discord and collapse, with implications for family formation, social order, and survival. The article explores the linkages between changing livelihoods and gender relations, focusing especially on marriage in relation to agriculture and land issues, gendered incomes, sexuality, AIDS orphans and other effects of HIV/AIDS. Within this overall difficult context, the enduring ethic of caring and the buffering effects of people’s access to arable land and other natural resources are apparent. Throughout, the article discusses the theoretical implications of the research, participating in debates about regional conditions and theoretical understandings of...