1st Edition

Everyday Crisis-Living in Contemporary Zimbabwe

    This book examines the everyday lives of ordinary Zimbabweans in the context of national crises in post-2000 Zimbabwe.

    Throughout the literature of Zimbabwean studies, a consideration of everyday lives has been limited to informal trading and rarely applied as an analytical framework, despite the importance of understanding crisis-living with reference to the specific character of national crises across the African continent. This edited volume is one of the first in its field to theorise everyday Zimbabwean lives within the context of crisis, with three central themes addressed: urban and rural lives; men, women and HIV; and along and beyond the border. Chapters incorporate topics from child marriage and sexual practices, to climate change and social accountability, encompassing a shift in focus from macro-structures to how farm labourers, students, child-brides and other ordinary people negotiate gender, class and social dynamics within a dominant order. The introductory chapter offers an innovative analytical framing for the empirical chapters which follow, each providing micro-studies based on original qualitative fieldwork by early-career Zimbabwean scholars.

    Everyday Crisis-Living in Contemporary Zimbabwe will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology and African Studies more broadly.

      1. Everyday crisis-living in Zimbabwe

      Kirk Helliker, Manase Kudzai Chiweshe, Sandra Bhatasara and Gift Mwonzora

      Part 1: Urban and rural lives

      2. Accountability of Bulawayo's urban council: service delivery and civic activism challenges

      Delta Sivalo

      3. Mistrust and despondency: fractured relations between residents and council in Glenview, Harare

      Tafadzwa Sachikonye

      4. Climate change adaptation by Chivi farmers

      Elinah Nciizah

      5. A2 fast-track Lowveld sugar cane farms: lives of farmers and farm labourers

      Kudakwashe Rejoice Chingono

      Part 2: Men, women and HIV

      6. Caught between a rock and a hard place: girl-child marriage as a safety net in Mabvuku, Harare

      Shamiso C. Madzivire and Wiseman Masunda

      7. Understanding forms of loyalty to Mugabe

      Rufaro C.A. Manzira

      8. Sex, HIV and medically circumcised males: a study in Harare

      Paidashe Chamuka

      9. HIV therapy in Chivanhu, Masvingo district

      Tendai Wapinduka

      10. Married women and development in Gwanda

      Patience Sibanda

      Part 3: Along and beyond the border

      11. Lived experiences of cross-border traders: the case of Kariba

      Joshua Matanzima

      12. Trust and the Zimbabwean diaspora: a case study of the West Midlands County, England

      Felix Tombindo and Simbarashe Gukurume

      13. Zimbabweans at foreign universities: the case of Rhodes University

      Andile Daki

      14. Zimbabwean traders in South Africa

      Tariro Henrietta Musiyandaka

    Biography

    Kirk Helliker is Research Professor and Head of the Unit of Zimbabwean Studies in the Department of Sociology at Rhodes University, South Africa. He supervises a large number of Zimbabwean PhD students, and publishes primarily on livelihoods, land struggles and civil society in Zimbabwe.

    Dr. Sandra Bhatasara is a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of Zimbabwe and Research Associate in the Department of Sociology at Rhodes University. Her research focuses on intersectional studies of gender, agrarian issues, environment and social dimensions of climate change.

    Manase Kudzai Chiweshe is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of Zimbabwe. He is also Research Associate, Department of Sociology, Rhodes University, South Africa. His research resolves around everyday life in African spaces.