Women's income and the livelihood strategies of dispossessed pastoralists near the Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania

Abstract

There are numerous incidences of impoverishment and livelihood change in pastoral societies following transformations in land use, and land and livestock ownership. Opinion is divided over the effect of these changes on women. This paper considers the case of the former residents of the Mkomazi Game Reserve. Pastoralists were evicted from the Reserve in the late 1980s and their livelihoods have changed as a result. I show that women from poorer households now have to sell milk, firewood, or medicine frequently to meet daily family needs, but I argue that increased income-earning activity by women is not only the result of impoverishment. Selling goods is useful for women as it provides an income that they control and some choose to earn their own money. The income resulting is also subject to intrahousehold power dynamics. Women may have to sell more goods more often and may be less free to use the money as they wish because men sometimes withdraw “normal” provisions for day-to-day needs in the expectation that women's income will meet the deficit. Debates over the changing status of women in pastoral society need to be cognizant of these intrahousehold contests.