Studies on migrant-labour systems have focused on the negatives, particularly on women left behind as guardians of men’s interests, but with no real control. My extended research on former migrant-labour societies in north-western Zimbabwe has challenged this ‘doomsday’ narrative. It did not only reveal the feminisation of household and societal decisions, but also how the migration of men has liberated women and allowed them to play crucial roles within the household and society systems. My study thus illuminates differences between rural societies and cautions against the risks of over-generalisation when looking at the relationship between women and migration. It stresses the importance of migration on development, and the empowerment potential on women who take up prominent positions in the household and in society decision-making structures.
AlexanderJMcGregorJRangerT (2000) Violence and Memory: One Hundred Years in the ‘Dark Forests’ of Matabeleland. Oxford: James Currey.
2.
BoehmC (2003) The social life of fields: labour markets and agrarian change in Lesotho. Paideusis. Journal for Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Studies3: 1–20.
3.
BourdillonM (1987) The Shona Peoples. Gweru: Mambo Press.
4.
BushRCliffeL (1984) Agrarian policy in migrant labour societies: reform or transformation in Zimbabwe?Review of African Political Economy11(29): 77–94.
5.
ColsonE (1962) Family change in contemporary Africa. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences96(32): 641–652.
6.
CoudereHMarijsseS (1988) Rich and poor in Mutoko Communal Area. Zimbabwe Journal of Economics2(1): 1–25.
7.
CousinsBWeinerDAminN (1992) Social differentiation in the communal lands of Zimbabwe. Review of African Political Economy19(53): 5–24.
8.
DavisonJ (1997) Gender, Lineage and Ethnicity in Southern Africa. Boulder: Westview Press.
9.
GaidzanwaR (1994) Women’s land rights in Zimbabwe. Issue: A Journal of Opinion22(2): 12–16.
10.
GaidzanwaR (2011) Women and land in Zimbabwe. Paper presented at the Conference ‘Why Women Matter in Agriculture’, Sweden, 4–8 April 2011.
11.
GoebelA (1999) ‘Here it is our land, the two of us’: women, men and land in a Zimbabwean resettlement area. Journal of Contemporary African Studies17(1): 75–96.
12.
GoebelA (2005) Zimbabwe’s ‘fast track’ land reform: what about women?Gender, Place & Culture12(2): 145–172.
13.
GoZ (1982) Communal Land Act 20/1982. Harare: Government Printers.
14.
HorrellSKrishnanP (2007) Poverty and productivity in female headed households in Zimbabwe. The Journal of Development Studies43(8): 1351–1380.
15.
JacobsS (1983) Women and land resettlement in Zimbabwe. Review of African Political Economy10(27/28): 33–50.
16.
JacobsS (2002) Land reform: still a goal worth pursuing for rural women?Journal of International Development14(6): 887–898.
17.
MandishonaG (1996) Population growth impact in a sparse resource environment. In: LopesC (ed) Balancing Rocks: Environment and Development in Zimbabwe. Harare: Southern African Political Economy Series Publishers.
18.
MaphosaF (2010) Transnational and undocumented migration between Zimbabwe and South Africa. In: CrushJTeveraD (eds) Zimbabwe’s Exodus: Crisis, Migration, Survival. Cape Town: SAMP.
19.
MoyoONKaweweSM (2009) Lone motherhood in Zimbabwe: the socioeconomic conditions of lone parents and their children. Social Work in Public Health24(1–2): 161–177.
20.
MutopoP (2011) Women’s struggles to access and control land and livelihoods after fast track land reform in Mwenezi District, Zimbabwe. The Journal of Peasant Studies38(5): 1021–1046.
21.
NyambaraPS (2001) Immigrants, ‘traditional’ leaders and the Rhodesian state: the power of ‘communal’ land tenure and the politics of land acquisition in Gokwe, Zimbabwe, 1963–1979. Journal of Southern African Studies27(4): 771–791.
22.
O’LaughlinB (1998) Missing men? The debate over rural poverty and women-headed households in Southern Africa. The Journal of Peasant Studies25(2): 1–48.
23.
PankhurstDJacobsS (1988) Land tenure, gender relations, and agricultural production: the case of Zimbabwe’s peasantry. In: DavisonJ (ed) Agriculture, Women and Land: The African Experience. London: Westview Press.
24.
PottsD (2000) Worker-peasants and farmer-housewives in Africa: the debate about ‘committed’ farmers, access to land and agricultural production. Journal of Southern African Studies26(4): 807–832.
25.
PottsDMutambirwaC (1990) Rural-urban linkages in contemporary Harare: why migrants need their land. Journal of Southern African Studies16(4): 677–698.
26.
RoeE (1995) Except-Africa: postscript to a special section on development narratives. World Development23(6): 1065–1069.
27.
SchmidtE (1991) Patriarchy, capitalism, and the colonial state in Zimbabwe. Signs16(4): 732-756.
28.
ThebeV (2012) ‘New realities’ and tenure reforms: land-use in worker-peasant communities of south-western Zimbabwe (1940s–2006). Journal of Contemporary African Studies30(1): 99–117.
29.
ThebeV (2017) Defenders of the woods? Women and the complex dynamics of a worker-peasantry in western Zimbabwe. South African Review of Sociology48(2): 1–17.
30.
WeinerDHarrisT (1991) Agricultural development in Zimbabwe: transition in a labour reserve economy. In: SeidmanANa MwanzaKWCSimelaneNWeinerD (eds) Rethinking Agricultural Transformation in Southern Africa. Trenton: Africa World Press.
31.
WorbyLE (2001) A redivided land? New agrarian conflicts and questions in Zimbabwe. Journal of Agrarian Change1(4): 475–509.
32.
YudelmanM (1964) Africans on the Land. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
