Gender, Climate Change and Food Insecurity: A Zimbabwean Rastafari Perspective

Abstract

The global climate change crisis has a direct bearing on the imbalances affecting the ecosystem including food security. In Africa, the theme of food security is urgent and has been exacerbated by pandemics and the footprint of the ecological crisis. The study seeks to examine the experiences of Rastafari women in the context of gender, climate change and food insecurity in Zimbabwe. Rastafari is a religious and political movement that developed in Jamaica in the 1930s and was adopted by many groups globally. It contains elements of Protestant Christianity, mysticism, and a pan-African political consciousness. Paradoxically, Rastafari is a patriarchal movement that subordinates women, but at the same time claims to advocate for the liberation and social justice of the oppressed in society. The research posits that Rastafari women experience a double jeopardy in the face of human-made climate change and food insecurity in Zimbabwe. The study grappled with the following questions: How are the forms of inequalities legitimated in Rastafari? What becomes visible as violence and what is eclipsed in Rastafari? What practices are being reshaped and reconceptualised under climate change and food insecurity contexts? By using observation and interviews to gather data as well as insights, from the ecofeminist theoretical framework, the study established that rapid industrialization, heightened consumerism, unrestricted technologies, policy flaws and other anthropogenic factors engineered through the hegemonic tendencies of ‘Babylon’ are blameworthy for the catastrophe of climate crisis and food insecurity. Rastas are skeptical towards the use of Genetically Modified Foods. The research concludes that despite gender disparities in the movement, the agency of women Rastas is expressed through, inter alia, natural living, Ital foodways and waste management in the context of ecological crisis and food insecurity.