Making Ends Meet: Experiences of Older Women Heading Households in Rural Domboshava, Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

Most ethnographies still pay little attention to the subsistence experiences of older adult women heading household in Africa. Drawing from nineteen months of ethnographic research in Domboshava communal lands, this article addresses this gap in knowledge by discussing the position of older women heading households in rural Zimbabwe and the impact of historical and current challenges on their subsistence activities. In this article, I argue that there is no typical African widow. I further argue that these older adult women’s historical and present experiences have led to the visible reversals in the remittance flows, poor social networks, changing gender relations, ill health, the impact of HIV and AIDS, changing household structures, as well as multiple and competing responsibilities. All these factors are coalescing together to affect the older adult women’s subsistence activities and their capacity to take care of themselves, their immediate and extended families.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• generation
• household head
• older adult
• subsistence activities
• Zimbabwe

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest has been reported by the author.

Notes

1 Zimbabwe’s staple thick porridge made from maize.

2 A ritual ceremony to settle the spirit of a dead person by welcoming it back home and introducing it to older spirits and ultimately Mwari (God), usually held one year after the person’s death. In Shona culture, it is believed that from the time of death to the date of the settlement of the deceased’s spirit, the spirit is wandering in the forest (see, Mpofu 2001; Rutsate 2010; Vambe 2009).

3 Compound D is a basal fertiliser mainly used for growing maize in Zimbabwe. The chemical formula for compound D is NPK 10-20-10+6.5%S and is equivalent to manure/cattle dung, which is also widely used as a substitute by people in the study village.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ignatius Gutsa

Dr Ignatius Gutsa is a senior lecturer in the sociology department at the University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe. He holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He has been researching the situation of older adults in Zimbabwe since 2005. His research interests include HIV and AIDS, sexual and reproductive health, sexuality, institutional care and social security of older adults and environmental anthropology.