Women and Work in Zimbabwe, C.1800–2000

Abstract

Women and Work in Zimbabwe, C.1800–2000 Pilossof Rory (bio) ABSTRACT This paper looks at the working lives of women in Zimbabwe and how these have shifted and changed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To do so, official labor records, census and labor surveys are augmented with qualitative data about the labor relations women performed outside of the formal economy. Key here will be exploring female contributions to the informal labor economy, subsistence or peasant agriculture, and their reproductive and household labor. In order to fully assess women's participation in the economy of the region, attention will also be paid to the migrant labor system in southern Africa and how women have responded to this, participated in it, and pursued their own agency within this system. The paper adopts wider conceptual approaches, including a broader definition of labor and using the methodology and the taxonomy of labor relations developed at the International Institute of Social History for the study of shifts and continuities in labor and labor relations across time and space at a global scale. The paper makes the argument that social structure and gender relations present in African societies during the late 1800s informed responses to colonialism, not necessarily the other way around. These relations continued to influenced how women interacted with the wage labor economy and informal economy after independence and into the twenty-first century. KEYWORDS gender, women, labor, trade, Southern Africa [End Page 93] Introduction Labor studies in Zimbabwe have a rich and well-developed historiography. The contested and uneven processes of colonization, urbanization and land accumulation have meant that labor, and how labor has interacted with these processes, has been a central focus for a number of scholars and researchers, such as Giovanni Arrighi, Ian Phimister, Charles van Onselen, and Brian Raftopoulos.1 Part of the reason for the wealth of critical literature, particularly from 1890 to the present, is the availability of archival sources with which to undertake such research: censuses, labor surveys and labor reports. However, as this paper illustrates, these archival sources fundamentally misrepresent and undercount the working lives of women in Zimbabwe. To get a more comprehensive picture of the work women did necessitates exploring female contributions to the informal labor economy, subsistence or peasant agriculture, and their reproductive and household labor. Furthermore, to fully assess women's participation in the economy of the region, attention will also be paid to the migrant labor system in southern Africa and how women have responded to this, participated in it, and pursued their own agency within this system. The paper adopts wider conceptual approaches, including a broader definition of labor and using the methodology and the taxonomy of labor relations developed at the International Institute of Social History for the study of shifts in labor and labor relations across time and space at a global scale. Historical Background Pre-1890 Before the arrival of European settlers, two main population groups, the Shona and Ndebele, dominated the area now known as Zimbabwe. The "Shona" lived across Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The term Shona represents a collection of people, made up of a number of groups (Korekore, Zezuru, Karanga, Kalanga, Manyika, Ndau, and Rozvi), who "speak different, but mutually intelligible, dialects."2 They dominated the middle and high veld areas of Zimbabwe (from northwest to southeast of the country). The Shona were mainly agriculturalists, growing a wide variety of crops, which varied from region to region and on weather conditions. Millet and sorghum were widely grown, and later maize. Livestock were also kept and included cattle, goats, sheep, dogs and fowl. David Beach, by focusing on a small village, Goredema, part of the Chivero group of people, gives us some insight into the functioning of the Shona villages. In the late nineteenth century, Goredema village consisted [End Page 94] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Map of Zimbabwe of more than 100 people, settled in a sprawling settlement. It consisted of 16 married men, 7 polygamists (with 2 wives each) and 14 bachelors (42 percent bachelors, 34 percent polygamists, 24 percent monogamists for whole male population). Shona society had bride price and bride service marriage systems. As Beach explained...