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Cultivating Power:
Women, Gardens, and Development in the
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Heather Nicole Holtzclaw

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CULTIVATING POWER:
WOMEN, GARDENS, AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE
ZAMBEZI VALLEY, ZIMBABWE
By
Heather Nicole Holtzclaw
A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Sociology

1997

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ABSTRACT

CULTIVATING POWER:
WONIEN, GARDENS, AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE ZAMBEZI
VALLEY, ZIMBABWE

By

Heather Nicole Holtzclaw

The longstanding image of women of the South as passive recipients of development
interventions who are victimized by its processes remains powerful within the field of
“women” and “development,” despite recent emphases on empowerment. Overcoming
this image remains one of the central challenges to the field of “women” and
“development.” While uncovering the silent structures that have impacted women’s lives
has been critical to the development of the field, the emphasis on structural issues has
obscured women’s agency and the efforts of women to shape and transform their lives
and communities. By examining evidence from a study on women, gardens, and the
Mid-Zambezi Valley Rural Development Project (MZVRDP), the advantages of
rethinking power in the context of development become clear. The women of Magariro
did not passively accept the constraints imposed by MZVRDP. Rather, they confronted
their circumstances, negotiated with other household members, and made choices to
improve their position as best they could. Abandoning the “victimization” approach
allows us to recognize the way in which women exercise power, rather than focus on the
way in which women of the South need to be “empowered,” yet another process in which

they are passive recipients.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A publication such as this would not be possible without the support of various
colleagues and friends. Most noteworthy, my advisor Professor Rita S. Gallin, who
dedicated many hours and untold energy to guiding and critiquing me as I completed the
writing for this project, and Professor Bill Derman, who supervised my work in the field
and provided the opportunity for this research, deserve particular attention. I am indebted
to them both for their continuing support through this and other projects. In addition,
Professors Chris Vanderpool and Craig Harris also provided me with key insights and
support for which I am thankfiil.

I would like to thank Darcel Smith and Elizabeth Ransom for their critique and
feedback on the earliest drafts of this thesis. Darcel and Elizabeth provided the
encouragement I needed during the initial writing stage, and motivated me to continue
despite the disappointments and difficulties I encountered. Finally, I would like to
acknowledge the tremendous support of Dewey Lawrence, without whom, this endeavor

would not have been successful.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ v
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1
LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................... 3
HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT IN ZIMBABWE ................................................. 11
METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................... l 8
COMMUNITY ............................................................................................................. 23
FINDINGS ................................................................................................................... 27
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 38
APPENDICES .............................................................................................................. 42
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 45

iv

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1: DISCONTINUITIES BETWEEN PROJECT GOALS AND REALITY.... 41

INTRODUCTION

This paper is about the relationships among “women,” “development,” and “power.”

While these are concepts with which we are familiar, they nonetheless need to be
problematized. The longstanding image of women of the South as passive recipients of
development interventions who are victimized by its processes remains powerful within
the field of “women” and “development,” despite recent emphases on empowerment.
Overcoming this image remains one of the central challenges to the field of ‘Vvomen” and
“development.”1 While uncovering the silent structures that have impacted women’s
lives has been critical to the development of the field, the emphasis on structural issues
has obscured women’s agency and the efforts of women to shape and transform their
lives and communities. In this paper, I will demonstrate that one element that is essential
to recognizing women’s agency is a redefinition of the concept of power. By applying
recent critiques of traditional definitions of power using insights from postmodernism, we
can begin to account for the diversity of responses to development interventions by
women of the South and begin to once again see their agency.

The paper is based on data collected in Magariro, a pseudonym for a resettlement

village created by the Mid-Zambezi Valley Rural Development Project (MZVRDP).2 I

 

1. I use “women” and “development” to indicate that I am not referring to any particular approach to
studying women in the development process, such as women in development (WID) or gender and
development (GAD). The quotations also reveal my commitment to problematizing the concepts of
“women” and “development.”

2. As with the village name, all personal names have been changed to ensure anonymity.

1

2

spent five weeks in Magariro in the Summer of 1996 collecting information about
women’s gardens and the way in which women use them to improve their position within
the household and secure their livelihood despite the risks associated with an unlawful
activity. The govemment-sponsored project sought to alter land use patterns by
demarcating land for arable fields, residential plots, and grazing areas. Riverine (stream
bank) land, the preferred agricultural land, was demarcated for grazing, despite local
insistence on cultivating this land. During interviews, women revealed contradictory
responses to the project. While they support and make claims based on some aspects,
they reject and defy others. These “inconsistencies” and “contradictions” highlight a
critical juncture in contemporary thinking about ‘Vvomen” and “development.”

Women’s dry-season gardens (or lack thereof) in the context of MZVRDP represent a site
of contestation as women respond to discourses of power in development processes in
Zimbabwe. The lack of planning for women (and women’s gardens) in MZVRDP
demonstrates not simply male-bias, but a lack of analysis of the power dynamics in the
development process.

I begin this paper by briefly tracing the history of scholarship on the relationship
between “women” and “development,” reviewing contemporary challenges to such
approaches, and examining discussions of power in the development process. I then
discuss important historical events that shape the experiences of Zimbabweans and
describe development in terms of the MZVRDP. After reviewing the methodology used
in this study, I explore my findings as they relate to discussions of power in the study of

“women” and “development.”

LITERATURE REVIEW

Classic approaches to the study of ‘Wvomen” and “development” have consistently
portrayed women of the South as victims. Often portrayed as victimized by male-biased
Western development planners, local male leaders, and multilateral banks, women of the
South lack agency within the “women” and “development” literature. While such a
perspective grew out of the concerns of “women” and “development” scholars and
practitioners that women of the South were being harmed more than helped by
development, it results in a uni-dimensional perspective on women’s experiences that
both distorts reality as well as delegitimizes the way in which women do act to shape
their social worlds. In addition, the need to acknowledge women’s agency rather than
their victimization coincides with the need to thoroughly explore the assumptions laden
in the recent emphasis on “empowerment” in development studies. Therefore, to sort
through the study of “women” and “development,” I briefly discuss (1) different
approaches to women and the development process, noting their strengths and
weaknesses; (2) new perspectives on power; and (3) how these new perspectives on

power frame “women” and “development.”

Women and Development Interventions: Reassessing Approaches

The theory and practice of “women” and “development” has surfaced in three
primary incarnations since women first entered the official development discourse in the
early 1970s. Nearly 30 years ago, Boserup (1970) first revealed that the costs and

benefits of development were unevenly distributed between women and men, and that

4

women were often disadvantaged by the process in comparison with men. In response to
the need to highlight this inequality and to demonstrate how the incorporation of women
into development planning would result in both more equality between women and men
and in more efficient development interventions, the field of Women In Development
(WID) was established (Parpart and Marchand 1995, Rathgeber 1990). As Parpart and
Marchand (1995: 13) note, according to this perspective, “Women’s development was
seen as a logistical problem, rather than something requiring a fundamental reassessment
of gender relations and ideology.” WID seeks to integrate women into existing
development projects based on the liberal assumption that if women participate in
development interventions equally with men, they will also benefit from them on an
equal basis. Gallin, Aronoff, and Ferguson (1989) characterize this approach as
“reformist” rather than “redistributive” because it seeks to reshape the existing system
rather than fundamentally change it. WID remains the dominant approach among policy
makers, because, as Moser (1993) argues, it is the least revolutionary in terms of
changing the distribution of wealth, power, and resources in society at large as well as
between women and men.

The second incarnation of ‘Vvomen” and “development,” Women And Development
(WAD), adopts a radical feminist approach and critiques patriarchy as well as
development as systems of domination. Proponents of WAD argue that women have
always been a part of the development process, but that their contributions have remained
invisible (Rathgeber 1990). In the view of proponents of this approach, integration into

existing development projects will do little to improve women’s lives. Rather, they view

5

women as special and advocate women-only projects as a development strategy (Parpart
and Marchand 1995). While the approach recognizes inequities embedded in
conventional development projects, the success of the women-only approach in
challenging patriarchy has been doubted due to the resulting marginalization of such
projects from mainstream development (Razavi and Miller 1995).

The most recent approach, Gender and Development (GAD) draws on socialist
feminism and extends the approach of WAD. First, it locates development within the
existing economics imperatives of capitalism. Second, it recognizes the social
construction of gender roles and relations, and thus, potentially, their reconstruction
(Elson 1995a, Moser 1993, Parpart and Marchand 1995, Rathgeber 1990). This
approach, the most recent incarnation of “women” and “development,” owes a significant
debt to the work of women of the South (i.e., Sen and Grown 1987). In contrast to the
WID approach which relies on the supposition that inequity in development is a mishap,
“the redistributive perspective ...” according to Gallin, Aronoff and Ferguson (1989: 6),
“believes that women are disadvantaged not by ‘malfunctions’ in the system but by the
structural features of the global economic order.” Further, GAD scholars do not see
gender as fixed. Rather, they argue, gender is historically constructed, locally situated,
and always challenged. GAD focuses on the empowerment of women and the
transformation of the social order. It is thus the most revolutionary of the approaches,
and as Moser (1993) notes, the least used in practice, despite its popularity among
academicians (Parpart and Marchand 1995).

GAD extends scholarship on women and processes of development by acknowledging

6

that women do not constitute a homogenous group and that class, race, ethnicity and
other social markers of difference mediate women’s relationship to power. But the
framework remains limited in its analysis of power relations in the development process
itself. Specifically, the notion of “empowerment” relies on a definition of power as a
zero-sum game; either a person has power or she does not. The concept of
“empowerment” further can be viewed as patronizing, by implying that women of the
South need to be empowered through development interventions designed in the North.

It rests on the notion that women are victims without power who have to be “taught” how
to negotiate their own lives.

Parpart and Marchand (1995) suggest that, although scholarship on ‘Vvomen” and
“development” has increased our understanding of theoretical and substantive issues in
the field, it continues to represent women as passive victims. Calling for new drinking
about “women” and “development,” Parpart and Marchand (1995) advise researchers
both to address the real problems of lower-class women and to challenge control over
knowledge and power in development practice, an issue that has remained relatively
unexplored in the development process. The classic approaches to ‘Wvomen” and
“development” all share an inability to recognize the fluidity of power and thus fail to
acknowledge women’s agency, a point I will explore later. Demanding “attention to
women’s lived realities and understandings,” Parpart and Marchand (1995:19) advocate,
“An approach to development that accepts and understands difference and the power of
discourse, and that fosters open, consultative dialogue [which] can empower women in

the South to articulate their own needs and agendas.”

7

In their attempt to call for new drinking about “women” and “development,” however,
Parpart and Marchand also rely on the concept of empowerment to define potential
change. However, if we begin to look more closely at the notion of power, and explore
non-traditional ways of thinking about power, we can begin to challenge the assumptions
underlying the concept of empowerment, namely the alleged powerlessness of women of
the South. Scholars of “women” and “development” who attempt to overcome the
characterization of women of the South as passive victims require an understanding of

power as relational in nature.

Rethinking Power

It is not coincidental that the issue of power has remained relatively unexplored by
scholars of “women” and “development.” After all, development studies have
historically lacked an adequate analysis of power as a process. “Development” has been
viewed either as a historical phenomenon in which countries of the North develop by
‘fimderdeveloping” countries of the South, or, operationally, in terms of interventions
designed to stimulate economic growth, thereby moving countries of the South to a state
similar to countries in the North. The nature of the power involved in these two
process—the how rather than simply the why—is not interrogated.

Scholars such as Escobar (1995), Long and Long (1992), and Parpart and Marchand
(1995) have recently begun to fill this gap by interrogating the development process
drawing on Foucault’s (1993) observations that power and resistance are mutually

constitutive elements. According to Foucault, power is everywhere, at all times. It is

8

exercised “from innumerable points, in the interplay of non-egalitarian and mobile
relations” (Foucault 1980:519). Power is present in the creation of official knowledge
and the suppression of subjugated knowledges. Indeed, Foucault (1980:520) maintains
that power never exists in isolation from resistance:

Where there is power, there is resistance. [The] existence [of
power relationships] depends on a multiplicity of points of
resistance: these play the role of adversary, target, support, or
handle in power relationships. These points of resistance are
present everywhere in the power network. Hence, there is no
single locus of great Refusal, no soul of revolt, source of all
rebellions, or pure law of revolutionary. Instead there is a plurality
of remittances.

Power is, therefore, always a negotiation (explicitly or implicitly) between agents seeking

to gain an advantage, curry favor, or otherwise shape the social world. In fact, Villarreal

(1992: 256), echoing Foucault, points out,
The scope of power, commonly defined as the capacity of an
individual to impose his or her will upon others, must be unpacked
to allow for an understanding that includes the probability of
achieving only part of one’s project, of accepting compromises,
but then pressing home one’s moderate aims in an attempt to
dominate as big a part of a situation as possible so that one can
consider one’s aspirations consummated.

Domination, thus, need not be total. Rather, it may be partial so long as it is sufficient to

establish dominance. Extending Foucault’s notions of the fluidity of power and plurality

of resistance to the field of development studies and practice, Villarreal (1992:25 8)

further maintains that:

9

If the intention is to understand the causes, connections and
consequences of power processes, we have to look very closely at
the everyday lives of the actors, explore the small, ordinary issues
that take place within different contexts and show how compliance,
adaptation, but also resistance and open struggle are generated.
[W]e have to look for small flashes of command that may peek out
from behind the screens. I claim that power is of a fluid nature
that fills up spaces, sometimes for only flickering moments, and
takes different forms and consistencies, which make it very
difficult to measure, but conspicuous enough to describe.
Villarreal reminds us that power relations are never unilinear or predetermined, a point
also made by James Scott (1985) in his discussion of the ways in which peasants resist
class power in their everyday lives. When looking for power, she insists (1992:257), “we
see struggle, negotiation and compromise. Those labeled as ‘powerless’ or ‘oppressed’
within specific circumstances are not utterly passive victims and may be involved in
active resistance.” Power can, thus, be seen in the everyday lives and interactions of the
recipients of development interventions.

In a similar vein, Norman Long (1992) situates the different actors in the development
process in relations of power. He argues that development interventions must be
understood as “interfaces” between individual people and external agencies or structures
that are shaped by power relations (Long 1992). Although the design and
implementation of development interventions often originate in actors located beyond
local community structures, these interventions are still mediated and thus transformed by
social actors (Long and Long 1992). According to Long (1992:21, “Social actors are not
simply disembodied social categories or passive recipients of intervention,...[rather

they are] active participants who process information and strategize in their dealings with

various local actors and personnel.” These social actors respond in unique ways, not

10

according to predetermined scripts to development interventions (Villarreal 1992, Long
1992)

In summary, traditional sociological definitions of power focus on the ability to
impose one’s will despite opposition from others. It is an approach to power that is
unidirectional and zero-sum. Rethinking our approach to power by drawing on Foucault,
however, suggests relations between unequals are more complex. Power is not
necessarily possessed. Rather, it surrounds us and is infused in all aspects of our lives.
Utilizing such an approach in the field of “women” and “development” has important
implications for moving beyond merely painting women as victims of development and

presenting women as agents who manipulate and shape their social worlds.

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT IN ZIMBABWE

Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), is a land-locked, semi-arid country in Southern Africa
that attained independence from its colonial settlers in 1980 after a prolonged liberation
war in which many Zimbabwean lives were lost or disrupted (see Appendix 1). The
Eastern Zambezi Valley, which borders Mozambique, was one of a few strategic
locations critical to the struggle and a site for fi'equent conflict between the Rhodesian
army and the liberation forces (see Appendix 1). In the seventeen years since Zimbabwe
attained independence, the government has pursued the development of the commercial
potential of Communal Area (CA) farmers as cotton, maize, and tobacco producers.3 The
decade following independence witnessed a boom in smallholder communal farm cotton
and maize production (Rukuni 1994). Yet, Zimbabwe is still plagued by problems of rural
poverty and too little land (Mehertu 1994).

Zambezi Valley residents experienced great disruptions to their lives during the war,
particularly those who were forcibly placed into Rhodesian “protected villages” or, as

they are more commonly known, “the keeps.” In addition to the dislocations caused by

 

3. Following the creation of racial inequalities under settler-colonialism, at independence in 1980,
Zimbabwe”s government engaged in limited social reform and expanded health care and education services
for its people. Afier a prolonged liberation struggle which focused on land alienation, inequality and a
socialist future, Zimbabwe emerged in a global system not amenable to true socialist reform, and thus,
Zimbabwe’s capitalist structures and inequalities have remained largely unchanged. Commercial farm
areas emerged in the colonial era (roughly 1890-1980) as “white” or “European” land which was alienated
from “black” Zimbabweans who were relegated to marginal agricultural land in the “black” Tribal Trust
Lands, now known as Communal Areas. These historical land disparities have persisted in the post-
independence era. Thus, approximately five million people currently reside in the Communal Areas, which
account for roughly 40 percent of Zimbabwe’s total land, while 1.5 million people (including commercial
farm workers and their families) reside in the Large Scale Commercial Farm areas, on approximately 30
percent of the country’s total land (von Blanckenburg 1992, Rukuni 1994).

11

12

the war, the re—arrangement of the lives and land use patterns of Valley residents has a
historical and colonial legacy. This legacy includes the creation of Kariba Dam in the
Western Zambezi Valley in the 19503 and a long string of legislation aimed at divesting
black Zimbabweans of prime agricultural land in favor of whites that includes the original
prohibition of riverine cultivation. As Derman has argued (1997, 1995), this history is
part of the lived experiences of Valley residents and therefore is critical to an
understanding of contemporary responses to non-democratic land use patterns, such as

the Mid-Zambezi Valley Rural Development Project.

What is the Mid-Zambezi Valley Rural Development Project?

The MZVRDP stretches from the Manyame river in the East to the Musengezi in the
West, from the escarpment in the South to the Mozambican border in the North (see
Appendix 1). Initiated in 1987 by the Government of Zimbabwe, the project began with
the following goals:

6 to protect the fi'agile ecology of the Valley through changing land use
patterns and agricultural practices;

0 to improve the standard of living of Valley residents;

6 to meet government goals of resettling Zimbabweans living in the
overcrowded Communal Areas; and

O to provide social infrastructure such as health clinics, schools, boreholes
(protected wells), and roads.4

Toward these ends, the government sought to enforce its prohibition of riverine

 

4. MZVRDP was fimded by the Africa Development Bank, a multilateral lending organization. It was
staffed and administered by Zimbabweans.

l3

cultivation which had remained illegal following independence despite its original outlaw
during the colonial era under policies of racially-based land use planning. MZVRDP
firrther planned to provide agricultural credit for farmers and to resettle 3,000 new
families and 3,600 families currently residing in the project area into consolidated
villages.

In this project, as with similar Rhodesian policies, riverine cultivation was to be
replaced with upland cultivation. The planned changes in agricultural practice involved
the government demarcation of land suitable for arables (fields for cultivation),
residences (homesteads), and grazing areas. Households were to receive a 12 acre arable
field and a one acre residential stand. Riverine land (the preferred agricultural land) was
defined as grazing land. This marks a significant change in cultivation practice, because
long-term residents insist that they have a history of riverine cultivation. Derman
(personal communication) has noted that no ecological studies have been conducted to
indicate whether or not stream bank cultivation as practiced in the Zambezi Valley is or is
not ecologically hannfifl.

MZVRDP operates under conditions which include residents’ experiences with top-
down land use planning and a continuity of legislation that is perceived to undermine
their livelihoods. The development vision of the Government of Zimbabwe for the
Zambezi Valley focuses on concentrated settlements, increased agricultural production,
and improved access to infrastructure. This “blueprint” model of development planning
(Derman 1995) plans for its intended beneficiaries, rather than with them. MZVRDP

weaves together two discursive practices—eligibility and gender.

14

In MZVRDP, the development discourse is deployed through the regime of eligibility
(Sylvester 1995). This discursive practice considers peasants who adhere to the scripts of
the project to be “modern.” Peasants do not design this technique of power. The
discursive practice of eligibility further relies on the regime of gender in Zimbabwe
which deploys “tradition ” beliefs about women and men as discrete and “natural”
categories. The practice of lobola, or bridewealth, symbolizes the view that women (and
their labor) transfer from the rule of fathers to the rule of husbands upon marriage
(Sylvester 1995). Gender as a discursive practice is further evidenced in patrilineal
lineage, patrilocal post-marriage residence, and legal polygyny. In Sylvester’s words
(1995: 189), the regime of gender “combines precolonial patriarchal practices with the
sexual division of labor the Rhodesians introduced, and with many of the gender issues
that are encrusted in Zimbabwe’s diverse politics of truth today.” Thus, “eligibility” and
“gender” operate together in project goals to exclude women.

In the case of MZVRDP, as is the case in much of hegemonic agricultural
development, modemity is defined as the adoption of technologically intensive
production and the abandonment of “traditional” practices. The MZVRDP Preparation
Report (F AO l985:3) describes Zimbabwe’s Communal Areas (CAs) dominated by
“traditional agricultural practices.” The report further declares that CAs would benefit
from the adoption of modern agriculture. The report (F A0 1985: 1) claims,

The project would have a major impact on cotton, maize and
sorghum production. Increased production and assurance of
reasonable incomes of the people reflects the priority objectives of
the Government. These aim to maintain self—sufficiency, export

surpluses and, at the same time, to improve living conditions of the
most disadvantaged groups.

15

The report (F A0 1985) emphasizes cotton’s significance to Zimbabwe’s economy, noting
that it contributes fifteen percent of agricultural exports, or seven percent of total exports.
According to the report, the majority of cotton production occurs in the commercial
farming areas. This sector, however, faces increasing problems of shortages of casual
labor during the harvesting season. “The situation differs,” the report continues (F AO
19853), “in communal areas where labor is more abundant.” The report further indicates
that the primary objective of the agricultural plans of the MZVRDP are to increase cotton
production and encourage participation in the cash economy.

Ironically however, the project’s emphasis on “modern” agricultural practice
specifically employs “tradition” to exclude women from equal participation. MZVRDP
relies on traditional practices in which women (and their labor) belong to husbands and
fathers. In the planning of the MZVRDP, women are conspicuously missing from
multiple levels. From the planning tables, to the project docrunents, to the project staff,
women are either marginalized or completely absent. For example, despite the increased
responsibility of women for agricultural activity, the project still treats men as household
heads (Derman 1995). Women are only able to apply for land if they are widowed, and
then, they are only able to receive 2.5 acres of land, as opposed to the 12 acres granted to
male household heads, regardless of the family which widows must support. There is no
provision of land for unmarried, married, or divorced women (Derman 1995; FAO 1985).
Instead, it is assumed that, following “tradition,” women may gain access to land via their
relationships to men as daughters, wives, or sisters.

The male-bias of the project is crystallized in its lack of understanding and planning

16

for women’s work and responsibilities; specifically women’s work in gardens/dimba
(matimba pl.) and their responsibility for the provision of relish. The difference between
gardens and matimba lies in the types of crops cultivated. Whereas matimba refers to
riverine fields, gardens are smaller sized plots utilized during the dry season to cultivate
vegetables only. These differences will be discussed at more length below. Such
household gardens, according to Cleveland and Soleri (1987, 1991), are an under-utilized
development tool for improving household nutrition and security. As a development
strategy, gardens can increase food production in a socially and environmentally
sustainable way, improve nutritional status, and increase savings and income (Cleveland
and Soleri 1987). Indeed, Magaglela (1994) maintains that women’s garden activities are
critical to household security and historically have been under women’s control.

Yet, riverine gardens are not defined as “eligible” sites for modern development in
MZVRDP. Rather, the project has undermined women’s ability to maintain riverine
gardens. While the project advocates that women rely on boreholes for gardens, the
boreholes constructed by the project are poorly built and when broken are only slowly
repaired (Derman 1995).

To summarize then, the project’s “blueprint” for development in the Zambezi Valley
is one that condemns “traditional” agricultural practices, while depending on the
persistence of “traditional” gender practices. This approach ignores the unique historical
experiences of Valley residents with the war and government interventions. The
discourse on eligibility works in tandem with the discourse on gender to determine the

nature of planning in MZVRDP.

17

Perhaps for these reasons, the agenda of MZVRDP has largely been unmet. The
various government agencies charged with its implementation have not been able to fully
put in place the project’s goals, partially because the project has been mediated by people.

While I discuss why this is so below, here it is sufficient to note that women choose to
participate in some aspects of the project while rejecting adherence to others, thereby
revealing the different ways individuals negotiate a top-down, non-participatory project
as they also manage the positions of power within their lives.

While one could easily view this situation as one in which women are again victims of
thoughtless development planners, the insights of scholars such as Foucault and Villarreal
that power is flexible suggest an alternative interpretation that recognizes both
constraining and opportunity-providing factors for women involved with MZVRDP and
thus accommodates varied responses to similar situations. I particularly take from
Villarreal (1992:263) the notion of the “importance of looking into the efforts of
women in the creation, appropriation and conservation of space for themselves.”

Through exploring the varied responses by women to MZVRDP, I seek to contribute to
an articulation of “women” and “development” in which women are social actors with
agency. In seeking to observe small flashes of power, I therefore required a research

method that allowed for close analysis of the lives of a limited number of women.

METHODOLOGY

Problem and Practice

The insights of feminist epistemology informed the methods used in this study (Srrrith
1992, Bell 1993 a & b). This epistemology acknowledges not only the daily matters of
women’s lives, but it also recognizes the unequal power relations that exist between
“researcher” and “subject.” Though some (Stacey 1988) find “feminist ethnography” a
contradiction in terms because of this asymmetrical relationship, I follow Bell (1993b)
who argues that a feminist epistemology which centers women’s experience facilitates
fenrirrist ethnography.‘ In her words (Bell 1993bz3l), “Feminist ethnography opens a
discursive space for the ‘subjects’ of the ethnography and as such is simultaneously
empowering and destabilizing.” Therefore, by beginning with the everyday lived
experiences of women, by talking, working, and learning with women, and by attempting
to establish reciprocal relationships and fiiendships, feminist fieldworkers practice
feminist ethnography.

The feminist ethnographic methods employed in this study include participant
observation and in-depth interviews with 32 women in the Zambezi Valley. The study is
based on approximately five weeks (mid-June through July 1996) of living and working
in Magariro, a village created by the project as part of its attempt to resettle area

residents. At the time this study was initiated, the village included 23 households and

 

5. Feminists are not the only fieldworkcrs who have challenged the unequal relationship that exists
between the “researcher” and the “subject.” The unequal power dynamic that inheres in the research
relationship, however, is particularly problematic for feminists who seek to alter hierarchal social relations
(see Stacey 1988).

18

19

approximately 100 people.‘5 I interviewed a total of 23 women; living in 21 households in
Magariro.7 My study also included in-depth interviews with eight women from a village
located near riverine land, as well as three women who maintained borehole gardens as an
altenrative to riverine gardens.8 I also walked with women to their garden sites. Through
these visits, I was able to document the content and structure of women’s riverain
gardens. In my interviews, I learned of the work cycle involved in women’s dry- and

wet- season cultivation and the impact of the project on women’s lives.

Delving into the Everyday World as Problematic

I began this study armed with information from the prior research, writing, and
experiences of my project supervisor, Professor Bill Derman (1995 a and b, 1994; and
Derman and Murombedzi 1994), three years of chiShona language training, and broadly
defined research questions and goals.9 The dearth of information regarding women’s dry-

season gardening in Zimbabwe and the project’s impact on this cultivation demanded that

 

6. Household has been defined in terms of each woman and her dependents. Therefore, the two
polygynous marriages that were located in the village were treated as two and six marriages respectively.
Because new residents are still moving into the village, the population is only an approximation. Within
the short time of my research, three new families began clearing lands for residentials.

7. In Magariro, I interviewed two elderly women who lived in the households of their son and daughter,
respectively. Two households from Magariro were not represented in my study because the women
declined to be interviewed: one was the youngest of six wives in one of the polygynous marriages in the
village; the other was a single woman who headed the only defacto female-headed household in the
village.

8. The project suggests that locating gardens near boreholes is a viable alternative to riverine gardens.

9. chiShona is the language spoken by approximately 80 percent of Zimbabweans. In the area in which I
worked, the dominant dialect is Korekore. My original research questions centered around the significance
of riverine gardens to household security and the impact of MZVRDP on women’s ability to maintain
them.

20

the research be exploratory.

W I spent my first days in Magariro settling in with the family
of my research assistant, David, exploring and mapping the village, and, with David’s
assistance, gathering preliminary information on the 23 households that became the focus
of the research. My entry into Magariro was facilitated by (1) my ability to speak and
understand chiShona,lo and (2) the fact that I worked with a research assistant fi'om the
village who is known and respected by his fellow community members.

David greatly eased my entry into Magariro. His knowledge of the community and
region provided me with valuable information and understanding throughout the research
process. His experience with conducting research and interviews, as well as his
familiarity with women in the community, helped put our research subjects at ease. The
benefits of David’s position as an insider, however, must be considered alongside its
costs. Due to the sometimes sensitive nature of some of my interview questions (e.g.,
about disagreements with husbands or community politics), women may have felt
uncomfortable responding candidly in the presence of a man and a fellow villager. In
addition, David may have changed the women’s words during interviews in his capacity

as translator. While this insertion of another level of interpretation was problematic, my

 

10. Respondents told me that few white Zimbabweans or researchers from other countries try to speak
chiShona. Therefore, meeting a “mumngu” (white person) who speaks chiShona was surprising to many
of the people I met. Residents of Magariro appreciated my study of chiShona and attempted to assist in
my learning process. For example, one woman participant in my study, who had more education than
many women in the village and had studied English in school, made an agreement with me that she would
speak only in English to me, and I would speak only chiShona with her. In that way, we helped each
other’s language study.

Though I was able to carry on casual conversations in chiShona, I did not feel my language skills were
sufficient to carry out interviews without using a translator.

21

knowledge of chiShona enabled me to understand most of the subjects’ responses, and I
therefore felt assured that David’s impact was relatively minor.

In many ways, being a woman helped me to gain access to women’s lives and
experiences. As Bell (1993a:1-2) writes, “The issue of gender arises because we
(etlrnographers) do fieldwork by establishing relationships, and by learning to see, think
and be in another culture, and we do this as persons of a particular age, sexual orientation,
belief, educational background, ethnic identity and class. [W]e also do it as women and
men.” Therefore, my gender gave me some common ground with women. My status as
both unmarried and childless at an age at which I should have been both by local
standards, however, created a division. I chose to address these divisions (and other
divisions such as race, class, and nationality) by discussing them with honesty and
humor. For example, when women and men asked why I was not yet married, I
explained that women in the United States often married at a late age and that I wanted to
finish school before I thought about marriage and family. Moreover, when I added,

“Aah, varume vanonetsa” (men are trouble), I elicited laughter from men as well as
women, and was thus able to “break the ice” with individuals and establish a friendly

(sometimes teasing) relationship.

WW I conducted interviews in women’s homesteads, in

their gardens, and while walking with them to their gardens. In some cases, David would
help the women husk maize while we talked; I was usually busy taking notes. Though

we tried to speak with women alone, often children or other women fi‘orn a household

22

were present during interviews. The presence of a woman’s husband during an interview
proved to be one of the most difficult situations we encountered. Early in my stay, David
and I walked throughout the village and he introduced me and my project to members of
each household. Emphasizing that I wanted to learn about women’s gardens effectively
disinterested most of the men so that when I interviewed their wives, the husbands left. In
a few cases, however, husbands were present, listening or attempting to participate in the
interview.

One particularly uncomfortable case involved a husband who answered my questions
for his wife. She would speak only after he said what he thought, always looking at him
before talking. Afler completing the first part of the interview which focused on basic
household information, I asked the woman when she would next be going to her garden.
Luckily, she was planning on going the following morning. Explaining that I would like
to see her garden, I asked if we could accompany her there the following day and
postpone the rest of the interview until then. I (correctly) suspected that her husband was
not interested enough in my interview to walk two hours to the garden. The following
morning, we talked while we walked and the woman, who in the presence of her husband

said little, flowed with information and anecdotes.

COMMUNITY

The research site is a “new” village created by the project. Magariro (see Appendix 2)
is located in the Eastern Zambezi Valley, approximately ten kilometers from the juncture
of two major rivers, a site of extensive riverine cultivation. Although a smaller river runs
near the village, it does not accommodate riverine cultivation. The first two households
were moved to Magariro in 1991 and settlers continue to be moved or migrate to the area.
The nearest year-round, potable water source is a borehole built by the government years
ago (not as part of this project), which is a three kilometer (40 rrrinute) walk from
Magariro. The borehole provides water for the people (and livestock during the dry-
season) of at least three villages.

The village includes 23 households (15 monogamous maniages and 2 polygynous
marriages) with a population of approximately 100 people (for a rough map of the village
see Appendix 3). The predominant ethnic group in Magariro is Korekore with a
significant number of Vachikunda as well. Inter-marriage between these and other ethnic
groups is common.

In Magariro, villagers receive fields in one of two ways: through the project in which
“eligible” people (usually men) apply and receive an arable; and through the village chair
who exercises his “traditional” authority to distribute land not marked for arables by the

project, despite the fact that the project claims this right to be defunct. Of the 23

23

24

households studied, nine had been given land by the village chair” while 14 households
were given project land in Magariro; one of these 14 was in the name of the woman
householder. The majority of residents in Magariro migrated from within the Valley
from villages where the land to which they had access was small sized and marginally
productive compared to the pronrised 12 acre arable; therefore, for many households, the

acreage under cotton cultivation has increased after resettlement.

Livelihood and Economy in Magariro

Agriculture in the Zambezi Valley is organized according to the two seasons: the wet
or rainy season (approximately November through March) and the dry season
(approximately April through October). Traditionally, farmers cultivated staple foods
such as maize or millet, considered men’s crops, intercropped with what were considered
women’s crops, such as beans, cowpeas, groundnuts, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes in
their riverine fields or matimba during the wet season. During the dry season, farmers
cultivated small amounts of “green” maize as well as vegetables.12 This past century has
seen changes in agricultural practices including the introduction of both cotton as a wet
season cash crop under men’s control and garden crops as dry season food crops under
women’s control. While the introduction of cotton for cash production marks a

significant change in agricultural practice, the advent of gardens more accurately reflects

 

11. This includes the six households of one polygynous man. Since the land was given to husbands, a
total of four men out of seventeen cultivate land outside project land.

12. “Green” maize refers to corn that is harvested fresh on the cob and eaten. During the rainy season,
maize is left to dry on the stalk and then harvested and pound into a grain.

25

an alteration of an existing system of cultivation, as I will discuss below. Cotton
cultivation has altered the traditional division of labor through relegating the
responsibility for all food production primarily to women as men direct their attention to
cotton.

Through various means, women adapted their cultivation style to incorporate gardens
and therefore now usually reserve portions of their dimba to grow garden crops. The
term “garden” refers to a specific style of cultivation and specific crops in the wider
context of stream bank cultivation. Garden crops include a variety of dark leafy greens,
cabbage, tomatoes, and onions. These crops require more work, (such as hand-irrigation
and the application of manure and sometimes pesticides) than what I will define as dimba
crops.13

The residents of Magariro rely primarily on cotton and maize cultivation in upland
fields during the rainy-season for their livelihoods, though many also engage in off-farm
work for income at various points in the year. The staple food of Zimbabwe, sadza (a
stiff porridge usually made fiom maize) is, except in dire circumstances, always
accompanied by muriwo, or a stew. Villagers rely on vegetable stew (and occasionally
meat) for nutrition and to add taste to sadza. In rural areas like Magariro, meat is a rare
treat for many families. According to most women in Magariro, they and their
households eat meat less than once a month. Therefore, they rely on vegetables as an

important part of their diet.

 

13. I distinguish between dimba crops and garden crops because the two sets of crops require different
inputs. Dry-season dimba crops are the same crops (in smaller quantities) grown in rainy-season matimba
and upland fields.

26

During the rainy-season, women cultivate and gather vegetables fi'om their
household’s fields, usually located within a ten-minute walk from their household.
Women have assumed responsibility for much of work associated with maize and millet
in recent years, as well as contributing work in cotton production. During the dry-season,
women historically cultivated riverine gardens. In its attempt to enforce the prohibition
of stream bank cultivation through threats of fines, MZVRDP neither differentiated
between rainy- and dry-season cultivation, nor between fields and gardens, which are
smaller in size.

The emphasis on cotton cultivation has, however, demanded more labor in cotton
fields. With more acreage under cultivation than before resettlement and the
encouragement of the government through MZVRDP, the needs of cotton have come to
predominate within many households. Further, due to the fact that cotton’s harvesting
period extends beyond that of traditional staple crops, the demand for additional labor
comes during the time of year when women historically have focused on beginning to
cultivate riverine gardens (March -May). The project’s impotence at imposing it’s will is
clear; understanding the interaction between the project and women requires recognizing

women’s agency as well as a reconceptualization of the concept of power as a dialectic.

27

FINDINGS

MZVRDP & Magariro

This village provides a telling example of several short-comings of the project.
Although the pegging of arables began in 1991, by 1996 no residential stands had been
pegged; in essence, therefore, the entire village is an illegal settlement. According to my
informants, the “illegal” status of the village creates a sense of insecurity among residents
and has discouraged some from investing in quality housing and sanitation facilities.
Similarly, no borehole has yet been provided, although this was promised in project
documents. While residents believe the existing borehole is reliable, the lack of fencing
to protect it from livestock damage raises concern that it may break. Although women
agree that borehole gardens are not a good substitute for riverine gardens, they would
prefer them over their present situation. In 1996, the promised school had also not been
completed and the majority of children living in the village are not being formally
educated. The nearest operating school is approximately a two-hour walk from Magariro,
and the road to it is virtually impassable during the rainy season due to the lack of bridges
over nearby rivers.“ Finally, as is often the case in development planning, women’s
activities were neither understood nor considered in the planning process; dry-season
vegetable production, therefore, was overlooked. Figure 1 demonstrates the

discontinuities between the project’s goals and the outcomes in this case.

 

14. I have learned that since completion of my research, the primary school was finished and is now
operational.

28

The project failed to meet it goals by its original five-year end date (1992), its three-
year funded extension (1995), and by its most recent one-year extension (1996) (Derman
1997). Government estimates of the local population fell extremely short of actual
residents, and thus its goal of resettling 3,000 new households has been unmet.

The Government of Zimbabwe, through MZVRDP, assumed the position of
omniscient benefactor, declaring it knew and would keep Valley residents interests’ at
heart. Derman (1997, 1995, and 1994) has explored, however, the undemocratic, top-
down nature of this project and documented the difficulties various actors have presented
for the project implementors, such as refusing to provide bricks for the construction of
local schools. Residents have not responded to the project in uniform ways. While some
have openly resisted different aspects of this project, other residents have acquiesced,
revealing the social tensions and differentiation among residents. For example, Derman
notes that long-term Valley residents, who were more likely to possess riverine fields,
were also more likely to lose their fields as result of the project’s resettlement plans than
were recent rrrigrants. In contrast, recent migrants, who had been allocated fields away
from rivers by “traditional” authorities, were likely to be allocated fields by the project
that they were already cultivating and thus were not required to move. Response by
Valley residents has been rrrixed, with some residents refusing to relocate and continuing

riverine cultivation and others accepting their new arables.”

 

15. Valley residents also recall similar government attempts at relocation due to the Native Land
Husbandry Act of 1951 and are not favorably inclined to another disruption in their lives.

29

Women’s Responses To/ Against MZVRDP

An analysis of MZVRDP could easily cite its gender-blind and male-biased planning,
and then continue to show how the project has victimized women in the Zambezi Valley.
Although such an analysis would present the very real hardships women now face due in
large part to the project, it would fail to explain the ways women create hardships for the
project, namely by refirsing to adhere to one of its primary goals, the cessation of riverine
cultivation.

Although discursive practices of gender were thoroughly embedded within the project,
women are not passive victims. For instance, in some cases the project has opened up
“gender” for negotiation. Although fetching water has traditionally been considered
women’s work, this datum was not considered by project planners.16 Because the
overwhehning majority of women knew prior to resettling that Magariro had no nearby
water source, they did not want to resettle. Though ultimately these women agreed to
move with their husbands, their reluctance offered them the opportunity to renegotiate the
allocation of household chores in the new village. Indeed, several husbands helped their
wives with fetching water; in one household, the wife had never collected water in the
year since she and her husband had moved to the village. In this case, women were able
to manipulate circumstances to improve their lives by avoiding a strenuous and frequent
, task. This finding emphasizes the fact that while the project speaks to the “relocation” of
“families/households,” households are sites of struggle rather than sites of domination.

Indeed, as Magaglela (1994) argues, despite the reality that men dominate women in

 

16. Women’s chores are often delegated to children; in Magariro, however, very few households had
children assist with this chore due to the young ages of the majority of children in the village.

3O

much of household decision making, we must remember that households are sites of
negotiation. In addition, this example demonstrates not only the way in which the
discursive practices of “eligibility” and “gender” operate in tandem in MZVRDP, but also
the way in which women resist the difficulties created by discursive practices. The belief
that men are “providers” and “household heads” emanates from ideas deployed by the
discursive practices of gender. It is these practices that then enable the discursive practice
of development or eligibility to ignore women and riverine gardens in planning.

The project’s emphasis on increased cotton production as a source of income and
development also deserves close attention. As stated above, the project assumes that, in
the CAs, labor is abundant and can be made more productive, improving the status of
individual households as well as the nation’s GDP. The costs and benefits of increased
cotton cultivation, however, are not shared equally. The cultivation of cotton diverts
women’s labor from their dry-season riverine cultivation. Women, who account for
much of the “abundant” labor in CAs, report that the harvesting season for cotton,
particularly in high rainfall years, is longer than that for the staple food crops (maize,
sorghum, millet). The longer harvest places an increased demand on women’s labor at a
time of the year when they usually begin their riverine gardens. Delaying the start date
for cultivating dry-season gardens can decrease the harvest size of these crops. Increased
cultivation of cotton has also increased women’s responsibility for food crops, as men
devote their labor to cash crops. Although women work with men in cotton fields, they

report that cotton money “belongs” to husbands.l7 One woman noted that life had

 

17. Although women negotiate the use of funds earned by men, they tended to feel that their husbands
exercise more control over financial matters than they do.

31

changed since people began growing cotton, and that people now have money to buy
clothes, food, and utensils. She complained, however, that although sometimes a person
can get a lot of money from cotton, usually male farmers think only of buying scotch-
carts and clothes while the last thing they remember to buy is maize. Although the
increase in cotton cultivation predates MZVRDP, the project’s advocacy of its continued
expansion in the absence of an analysis of its gender (among other differentiated)
impacts, disadvantages some women. Women do not, however, firlly comply with the
labor demands reflected in the project’s assumptions regarding the “abundance” of labor
in the CA5. While the project relies on assumptions of abundant family labor or
“tradition,” some women adopt a modern approach and sell their labor to others. Thus,
for some women, cotton cultivation offers opportunities to earn money. In a limited
number of households in Magariro, some women were freed from other tasks to sell their
labor in other villagers’ fields for cash. Six women in Magariro (all without gardens)
chose this option in lieu of cultivating a garden in 1996. The women reasoned they could
earn money sufficient to purchase vegetables and possibly have some cash remaining for
other expenses. These opportunities result from the increase in land being farmed by

most Magariro households.

WWW It is easy to see why women
might be represented as victims when one considers the constraints the project has placed
on women’s lives. On closer analysis, we can see that women are responding to these

constraints. Although riverine cultivation had been prohibited prior to the advent of the

32

project, the project attempted to enforce this ban, curbing women’s autonomy —
although not all women (or men) complied. Regardless of whether or not they did, the
project introduced several new constraints on women’s lives. For example, many women
in Magariro, both those with and without gardens, reported feeling more dependant on
their husbands for money to purchase vegetables since relocation. One woman who
cultivated a garden said that she tries to keep her garden because she does not like “to beg
other women for vegetables or for money from my husban .” Another woman noted that
she found it very difficult to ask her husband for money to buy vegetables when they first
moved, but that she has now become accustomed to it. A 23 year-old mother of two
said,

It pains me in my heart to get money fiom my husband. If there is

anything I want, I wait for my husband to come home and borrow

money. Sometimes, we don’t have vegetable stew, because my

husband doesn’t have money. We stay with hunger without food; or

I can cook dried vegetables.
In short, the women agreed that it is important for women to be able to provide
vegetables on their own by cultivating a garden and to have access to their own income.

In addition, women both with and without gardens in Magariro report that their

households consume both fewer vegetables and a lesser variety of vegetables since
moving to Magariro. Women without gardens are dependent on purchases of vegetables
from other women or the nearest shops (a two-hour walk away). According to the
women (and my own observations), linrited types of vegetables are available at the

nearest market. Again, women’s limited income also affects their women’s ability to

purchase vegetables. Just as women renegotiated the household division of labor at the

33

time of settlement, so too they have negotiated the responsibility for appeasing the impact
of these constraints. Because many women had expressed concern over the distance to
gardens prior to settlement, the responsibility to alleviate these concerns does not remain
solely with women. Therefore, such new constraints become joint responsibilities as

women actively lobby for their husband’s assistance.

WWW. Women’s strategizing can also be seen in their
decision to maintain a riverine garden or not. No single factor affects whether or not a
woman attempts to cultivate a riverine garden from Magariro; rather the decision reflects
a compromise between women’s work loads, husbands, and perceived opportunities.
Women with gardens lived in households of various sizes, reared children of various ages
(or had no children), as did women without gardens. Some women with gardens
cultivated garden plots they farmed since before they moved while others cultivated new
plots. Two women who did not cultivate gardens at the time of the research, said that
they had cultivated gardens while living in Magariro in previous years, but had decided
not to this year. When asked why they did not have gardens, women most often replied
“its too far” and that they had too much work at home. Although as I show below, not all
women accepted these constraints.

The decision to continue to cultivate a riverine garden after resettlement reflects a
negotiation by women of costs and benefits. Although women would often at first
provide a simple answer to why or why not they attempted to cultivate a riverine garden,

further probing revealed a complicated process. On the one hand, women must consider

34

the possibility of penalties. On the other hand, they are negotiating within the limits
imposed by discursive practices of “eligibility” and “gender” to construct their own
“patriarchal bargain”—a concept originally coined by Kandiyoti (1988). According to
Kandiyoti (1988), women respond to local manifestations of patriarchy as actors who
strategize within particular constraints and bargain for the best circumstances they can.
Mai Felice Marowa’s decision to not have garden this year, for example, though she had
in past years at Magariro, demonstrates how patriarchal bargaining can occur at the
household level. She explained to her husband that this year, she had too much work
picking cotton, tending livestock, and looking after children to allow her to also maintain
a garden. She reminded him that in past years, they had hired someone to help with
domestic chores such as fetching water and tending livestock, but this year they had not.
The outcome of her negotiations, according to Felice, was that getting money from her
husband to purchase the vegetables she did not grow was not a problem. She had
convinced him that since she did all of the work at home, she could not also keep her
garden.

Felice added, however, that such decisions depended on family size and demands for
labor in the family fields. Felice’s sister-in-law, Mai Rudo Marowa, exemplifies this as
her decision to not have a garden resulted from her choice to sell her labor in others’
fields this picking season, rather than begin a garden. Rudo’s large family size freed her
labor from her husband’s fields and allowed her to earn money which she used to buy

vegetables and other household items and, she hoped, for school fees for her children.

35
W. In contrast to these women’s
decisions to not maintain a riverine garden, other women in Magariro valued riverine
gardens over other options. In glaring defiance of project planning, women fiom eight
(34%) of the 23 households attempt to maintain riverine gardens, walking two to three
hours one-way, two or three times a week to their garden locations. Only one woman
attempts to cultivate a garden located in Magariro. All of the 23 women interviewed had
cultivated gardens before resettling to Magariro. Of the eight women who cultivate
riverine gardens, five cultivate the gardens to which they had access prior to resettling.
Three women were no longer able to cultivate the land they had prior to resettlement
because the plots are located at a great distance from Magariro. They therefore borrow
riverine land from other women in the village.

Although many women persist in riverine cultivation, resettlement away from riverine
areas has introduced new problems for women maintaining gardens. First, the distance
has decreased areas under cultivation, limited women’s ability to sell surplus vegetables,
increased work in gardens, and decreased harvests. Those eight women in Magariro who
cultivate gardens revealed that because of the time required to reach their distant gardens,
they cultivate a smaller sized and less diverse garden than they had before. As one
- woman said, “by the time you arrive to your garden, you are tired, so you work less, and
harvest less.” Second, since the project has demarcated riverine areas as grazing land for
livestock, increasing numbers of livestock damage women’s crops requiring women to
construct fences to protect their gardens. While on the surface these problems show that

apparently some women are “victims,” this may not reflect reality, as I demonstrate

36

below.

For women with gardens, the distance from the village to the garden translates into an
increase in the time required to maintain the garden, plus additional work required
because of the infrequent visits. Maintaining these “distance” gardens does not secure
vegetables for the entire dry-season, however. The women report that as the season
progresses and the soil becomes drier, the gardens require more frequent watering. In
addition, as the dry-season progresses, domestic animals and wildlife increasingly enter
and destroy the gardens. Women who live a two-hour walk away can not meet the
demands of daily watering. The combination of cultivating a small plot with knowledge
that during the driest part of the year they will not be able to maintain their gardens, leads
women to sell fewer vegetables in favor of sun-drying and storing them for later use.

Mai Kamwe’s experience provides an example of the impact of distance on women’s
ability to maintain riverine gardens. A woman in her mid-50s, Mai Kamwe has
attempted to cultivate her riverine land (fi'om where she previously lived) since moving to
Magariro in 1991. She has given use-rights for large pieces of her land to women, fi'iends
and relatives, who still live in the village from where she moved because now the
distance to her riverine land has forced her to reduce the size of the garden that she
cultivates. In exchange, the women living nem'by and cultivating her land watch her
garden in her absence. Her riverine garden land has been demarcated as grazing land by
the project, so she has built a fence around her garden in hopes that she can protect it
fi'om domestic animals. Although she says that overall she is not unhappy with the

project, she reports with a sense of loss of her past success in cultivating a large garden

37

and dimba and selling her produce. Mai Kamwe still maintains pride in her ability to
garden, however, sharing the feeling revealed by many of my informants, that garden
cultivation is critical to a woman’s contribution to household security.

Yet, the distance that creates difficulties for some, creates opportunities for others.
Mai Makanda, a married woman with two children, is now able to sell vegetables to
many women in Magariro, as she is one of the few women still cultivating a garden. Mai
Makanda’s fellow villagers consider her to be successful in gardening and often come to
her, rather than other women with gardens, to buy vegetables. This has given her access
to her own money.

Mai Makanda is not the only person who now benefits from the demand for dry-
season vegetables in villages like Magariro. Women who remained living near the rivers
commission adolescent boys to visit Magariro by bicycle to sell vegetables, primarily
rape. Although their visits are unannounced and irregular, the young boys sell to many
villages located away from the rivers such as Magariro. While my limited time in the
field did not allow me to research this in depth, clearly, some women have access to a
new source of income, and accordingly, the power that comes with sharing control over

money.

CONCLUSION:
DEVELOPMENT AND POWER IN THE MID-ZAMBEZI

VALLEY RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Beginning in the early 19703 with the passage of the Percy Amendment to the US
Foreign Assistance Act (1973), the UN International Year of the Woman in 1975, and the
UN Decade for Women (1976-85), a series of events has propelled women into the
development discourse. Since then, the field of “women” and “development” has
burgeoned with increased recognition of the often differential impacts of development
interventions on women and men. Many international donor agencies now require WID
components and within the field debates continue over the value of “integrative” versus
“women-only” approaches. Despite these 25 years of scholarship and practice, we must
still question the gender impacts of development projects. We must also begin to ask, “In
what ways are women and men shaping and transforming the projects to which they are
subjected?”

The intersection of the discursive practices of gender and eligibility within the
MZVRDP have led to the exclusion of women as full participants and of gardens as sites
for investment. In response, women struggle within the constraints imposed by the
project to improve their position within the household and secure their livelihood.
Women’s persistent cultivation of riverine gardens, in opposition to the proj ects’s stated
goals, highlights the way in which they challenge power relations in development

processes. The women of Magariro revealed ambivalence to the project, simultaneously

38

39

noting it’s beneficial and detrimental effects on themselves and their families. Despite
the hardships imposed by the project, women are pleased with their new fields. These
ambiguities, the complex ways in which women choose to participate in some aspects of
the project while rejecting adherence to others, reflect women’s individual resistance to a
top-down, non-participatory project as they negotiate the discursive practices of gender
and eligibility and attempt to shape and transform not only MZVRDP, but also their
social worlds.

The experience of one elderly woman from Magariro exemplifies women’s
simultaneous acceptance and resistance to MZVRDP. Mai Hovi lives with her husband
on an arable they received through the project. They moved to Magariro in 1994. This
woman in her 70s walks an hour and a half each way to her riverine garden. Her feelings
about the project reflect complacence, yet her persistent riverine cultivation suggests
resistance: “There is nothing I can do or say. We did not see such settlement before,
people used to choose their land, their homes. Now, the government is choosing land and
villages for people — it’s bad.” Although Mai Hovi expresses powerlessness in
response to the project’s insistence on relocation, her refusal to stop cultivating her
riverine garden, along with many other women’s refirsals, represents the project’s failure
to meet one of it’s primary goals — changing land — use and demonstrates her exercise
of power in rejecting this important aspect of the project.

Through a series of decisions made to confi'ont the circumstances presented by
MZVRDP, the women of Magariro demonstrated “flashes of command” as they

attempted to define their social world. For some, the constraints imposed by MZVRDP

4O

allowed women to renegotiate their household division of labor and opt out of difficult or
unpleasant chores. The choice not to garden by some women in the village provided
economic opportunity for others who chose to continue to garden. Economic opportunity
arose for women without gardens in the form of the demand for labor in the village as
they were able to sell their labor for cash. In each of these situations, and numerous
others that undoubtedly exist and need finther study and exploration, the women of
Magariro exhibit brief moments of power, thereby challenging the notion that power is
unidirectional and total in nature.

By examining evidence from a study on women, gardens, and MZVRDP, the
advantages of rethinking power in the context of development become clear. The women
of Magariro did not passively accept the constraints imposed by MZVRDP. Rather, they
confronted their circumstances, negotiated with other household members, and made
choices to improve their position as best they could. Rather than focus on the way in
which women of the South need to be “empowered,” yet another process in which they
are passive recipients, abandoning the “victimization” approach allows us to recognize

the way in which women already possess power.

41

FIGURE 1:

DISCONTINUITIES BETWEEN PROJECT GOALS AND REALITY

 

Mid-Zambezi Valley Rural

Development Project Goals

Illustrations of Project Short-comings

from Case Study in Magariro

 

 

To protect the fi'agile ecology of the
Valley through changing land use
patterns and agricultural practices.

To improve the standard of living of
Valley residents.

To meet government goals of
resettling Zimbabweans living in the
overcrowded communal areas.

To provide infrastructure such as

schools, clinics, boreholes, and roads.

 

Arables demarcated in 1991;
residentials unpegged in 1996.

Village lacks safe water source
within reasonable distance.

Infi'astructure such as roads, bridges,
schools, not completed at time of
research.

Lack of understanding or planning
for women’s activities.

 

 

 

MAP 1

42

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45

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