Theorising other, ‘other childhoods’: Issues emerging from work on HIV in urban and rural Zimbabwe

Abstract

This paper agrees that universal models of childhood must be unpacked in order to reveal the diversity of ‘other childhoods’ in the global south, but argues that local, culturally specific understandings of childhood also need to be theorised and deconstructed. We attempt to do this by exploring experiences that are ‘other’ to ‘other childhoods’ and so examine the ‘un-childlike’ issues of young peoples' sexual health and child household headship in Zimbabwe. We contend that a century of contestation around the social production of identities in and through space has produced local contemporary understandings of childhood that seriously endanger youngsters in an era of HIV/AIDS. We argue both that other dimensions of ‘other childhoods’ must be recognised locally and that local understandings of childhood require greater international recognition if the pandemic is to be tackled. Finally, our exploration of these ‘margins’ of human experience lead us to believe that children must be understood both as competent and independent agents of social change and as vulnerable social becomings in need of protection.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the British Academy, Carnegie Trust, Russell Trust, Antipode, and our own school for providing the financial resources that supported this work, and ActionAid Africa but particularly our friends at Tsungirirai, for their continuing support in the field. We are eternally grateful for the hard work, patience and enthusiasm of the adults, youths, and children of Norton and Mhondoro North. Finally, we would like to thank Louise Holt, Caitlin Cahill and the two anonymous referees for their helpful comments in this paper.

Notes

1. Though we refer to the nation, we are really only able to draw on a knowledge of the majority Shona ethnic group.

2. Although lack of resources prevents many families from meeting educational aspirations for their children and/or preference may be given to boys.

3. Notwithstanding the taboos, incest appears in many lineage origin myths, allowing families to descend from a single male ancestor via his incestuous children (Kesby, 1999) and might also be used as a magical means to self enrichment (and recently, a cure for AIDS).

4. European forms of development are themselves perhaps best conceived as ‘hybrids’ of pre-capitalist and capitalist societies not archetypal norms.

5. Whites' interests diverged by the late 1950s when continued segregation became costly for an expanding industrial sector requiring larger numbers of skilled African workers (Stoneman, 1978; Saul, 1979; Bush and Cliffe, 1984; Cokorinos, 1984). Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front rose in the 1960s to defend geo-political status quo and further empowered African chiefs and elders to ensure their co-operation (Martin and Johnson, 1981; Ranger, 1982).

6. Childhoods on commercial farms are beyond the scope of this essay.

7. Mission schooling began soon after colonisation although free primary education for all only (and briefly) became available after independence in 1980.

8. The degree to which men had sex with men (recorded in the South African mines where young men often took the feminised role of ‘wives’) is beyond the scope of this essay.

9. There were some female guerrillas but few on active service inside Rhodesia.

10. Socio-economic background seemed to be the main indicator of differences in knowledge levels.

11. We take the abuse of women and children very seriously, but discuss rape and sexual coercion in a very matter of fact way because we are aware of the dangers of moralising research and of historical representations of black men as ‘rapacious’. Men's behaviour needs to be confronted, but in ways that engages rather than demonises them.

12. Children mimic society's hierarchies and a strong age-based pecking order, together with gender inequality, facilitates older boys' abuse of younger girls.

13. Notwithstanding this, our observation is that many orphans are ignorant of parents' cause of death (or are in denial), which may in turn obstruct their understanding of sexual health.

14. See Hunter (1990), UNICEF (1994), Sengando and Nambi (1997), UNAIDS (2001), Matshalaga and Powell (2002), Petros-Barvazian and Merson (1990), Kamali et al. (1996), Foster et al. (1995), Gregson et al. (1994).

15. Compulsory primary education, school fees, medical charges, and rampant inflation make it difficult for children to ‘earn their keep’.