Between a rock and a hard place: Negotiating gender, forest laws and capabilities for fuelwood access in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Despite wide coverage on the topic of fuelwood scarcity and its implications for gender in sub-Saharan Africa, there is little understanding of the relationship between gender, environmental legislation and capabilities. Through a qualitative study of Buhera district, I draw on feminist political ecology and its scalar relations to analyse how environmental legislation acts as a tool of enclosure, and dispossession. I extend the argument by applying Nussbaum’s capabilities approach in order to identify the unintended consequences of environmental legislation. Further, I demonstrate how fuelwood [in] access is a multidimensional and relational phenomenon contingent upon the legislation, capabilities, gender and its intersectionalities. I conclude that fuelwood [in] access does not only serve material concerns, but also capabilities that allow people to frame and adapt coping strategies.