‘Because it’s our culture!’ (Re)negotiating the meaning of lobola in Southern African secondary schools

Payment of bridewealth or lobola is a significant element of marriage among the Basotho of Lesotho and the Shona of Zimbabwe. However, the functions and meanings attached to the practice are constantly changing. In order to gauge the interpretations attached to lobola by young people today, this paper analyses a series of focus group discussions conducted among senior students at two rural secondary schools. It compares the interpretations attached by the students to the practice of lobola with academic interpretations (both historical and contemporary). Among young people the meanings and functions of lobola are hotly contested, but differ markedly from those set out in the academic literature. While many students see lobola as a valued part of ‘African culture’, most also view it as a financial transaction which necessarily disadvantages women. The paper then seeks to explain the young people’s interpretations by reference to discourses of ‘equal rights’ and ‘culture’ prevalent in secondary schools. Young people make use of these discourses in (re)negotiating the meaning of lobola, but the limitations of the discourses restrict the interpretations of lobola available to them

Secondary schooling and rural youth transitions in Lesotho and Zimbabwe

Based on case studies centred on two rural secondary schools in Lesotho and Zimbabwe, this paper examines the gendered impacts of schooling on young people’s transitions to adulthood. School attendance is shown, first, to disrupt the conventional pathways to adulthood: young people attending school may leave home sooner than they otherwise would, and take responsibility for their day-to-day survival, while marriage and childbearing are often delayed. More significantly, secondary schooling reflects, and contributes to, a growing sense that adulthood itself is not fixed. An alternative version of adulthood is promoted through schools in which formal sector employment is central. Yet while young people are encouraged to opt for, and work towards, this goal, only a minority are able to obtain paid employment. The apparent possibility of determining one’s own lifecourse serves to cast the majority of young people as failures in their transitions to adulthood

The working conditions of female workers in the food processing industry in Zimbabwe (with special reference to Canneries)

This study constitutes the findings of a two-month long research into the working conditions of female workers in the food processing industry with particular reference to canneries in Zimbabwe. The objective of the study was to analyse both the working conditions and the specific problems experienced by female workers and the character of the canning industry itself. Most of the problems and issues examined in previous ILO-sponsored studies on the food-processing industries had tended to be treated in a general and global manner. This Zimbabwean casestudy had therefore a specific focus which yielded extremely useful insights into the structure of the canning industry and into female working conditions and problems in particular. The significance of the food-processing industry to the national economy is obvious. The linkages between manufacturing industry and agriculture are clearly indispensable. The significance of the industry assumes an international character in its demonstrated capacity to produce for external markets. In spite of the diversity which characterizes the Zimbabwean economy, food-processing accounts roughly for about a quarter of the value of the total output of the manufacturing industry. Canning emerges as a crucial sub-secotr of food processing: fruit, vegetables, fish and meat products are the major commodities that are processed for both domestic and export consumption. Although it was obvious that canning was not the major employer of wage-labour in food-processing, there was sufficient evidence to sustain the observation that it was the major employer of casual, seasonal and contract female labour in the industry. To that extent, the particular concern and focus on the problems and conditions experienced by female workers was both warranted and revealing.,Ministry of Labour, Manpower Planning and Social Welfar