‘They count us among the dead’: ageing women’s experiences of intergenerational conflict in a changing rural economy in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Rural economies in sub-Saharan Africa are rapidly changing. While these changes are viewed by policymakers as rural development, limited attention has been paid to how this transformation has precipitated intergenerational conflict. This qualitative research examines the consequences of a rapidly changing cash-crop economy on women’s ageing experiences. Based on a purposive sample of 14 participants, I argue that while agrarian rural development has led to strong marketisation practices aimed at accumulating capital and alleviating poverty, it has also contributed to tension between young people and those ageing in rural villages, most especially older women. This tension has created a sense of invisibility among older women, which some described as ‘being counted among the dead’. Through an inductive analysis of participants’ life stories, three overarching themes are discussed to reveal older women’s experiences of intergenerational conflict: marketisation and distorted land relations; labels of disconnect and broken social bonds; and destructive leisure consumerism. With a focus on Uganda, the paper contributes to articulating new dimensions to older women’s experiences of material and non-material deprivation within shared resource bases in transitioning rural economies of sub-Saharan Africa.