‘Nothing is Straight in Zimbabwe’: The Rise of the Kukiya-kiya Economy 2000–2008

Abstract

This article examines the development of what I term the ‘kukiya-kiya’ economy, a new logic of economic action in post-2000 Zimbabwe. In local parlance ‘kukiya-kiya’ refers to multiple forms of ‘making do’. I argue that it has spread from its former position on the urban margins and in so doing has effected a sweeping spatio-temporal shift in the country's economic life. ‘Straight’ transactions carried out in accordance with enduring, jointly-held rules and morals have given way to ‘zigzag’ ‘deals’ seen to be limited to a particular time and place and directed at individual ‘survival’. This reorientation to the short term, where ‘proper’ solutions of all sorts are suspended, is mirrored by a widely-held perception that the country's development has also been suspended. When put together, the two forms of suspension create a seemingly inescapable dialectic, where the dictates of ‘survival’ and temporary ‘necessity’ can be used to justify nearly any economic act. Indeed, I argue, the new economy is driven as much by a discourse of necessity – that is, by a particular form of historical consciousness – as by material ‘needs’ and the economic practices intended to meet them.