| Challenges faced The challenges of generating livelihoods, building up assets and wider accumulation faced by young people are considerable. In reflecting on these, the following challenges were identified across cohorts by all informants interviewed (N=416). Table 1. Most frequently cited challenges across 768 total responses (multiple responses from informants) by district. Lack of cash/finance for agricultural inputs topped the list in Mazowe and Masvingo, with lack of/poor quality jobs mentioned frequently in all of the sites. The combination of challenges relating to agriculture (related to inputs, land/water access) were the most frequently mentioned, followed by job quality and access. This reflects the diversified pattern of livelihoods in all sites. Today, the particular challenge of drug/alcohol abuse was highlighted by a few. This increased amongst young people during the pandemic when people were stuck at home and many mobile livelihood options were not available during lockdowns (see earlier blog). Given the on-going drought at the time of the interviews, it was a surprise that not many highlighted drought and climate change as a challenge. Others focused on personal family challenges and the failure to get educational qualifications. Compared to discussions with the older cohort eight years ago, there was a similar array of challenges mentioned although a different ranking (the earlier study highlighted lack of jobs, lack of inputs, family tensions, educational failure and land/water access in this order, see Table 1). Given these challenges, how do young people construct livelihoods and what pathways of accumulation are followed? Stop-start accumulation Across our cohort sample, we see a stop-start process of accumulation. Different options combine to provide the investment for another activity, which in turn leads to a scaling up or a switch to something else. Over time what emerges is a complex livelihood mosaic, not something that can be characterised simply in terms of the single occupation of ‘farmer’, or even of ‘worker-farmer’ or other typologies used to characterise rural life in the past. The diverse ‘classes of labour’ of ‘working people’ suggest a much more variegated pattern that changes over time, differentiated by gender for sure but not according to standard stereotypes. Sometimes people are on the up, then projects fail and there is a collapse in fortunes. A slow, steady pattern of accumulation seen in the past when there was a standard livelihood pattern centred on extensive agriculture and livestock keeping is not evident. Instead, a much more precarious existence for young people is the norm, with opportunities limited and risks high. The importance of mobility A significant feature of this stop-start, uneven accumulation pattern is mobility among young people. As discussed in other blogs, the old patterns of circular migration by men to particular long-term jobs in towns, in mines or on farms, no longer exist. However, mobility is important, with men more likely to move than women for artisanal mining, fishing or cross-border migration, for example. Women also move, often in collaborative trading networks, but often are bound to a homestead through social reproduction and caring commitments. Many livelihood activities associated with migration are highly precarious and sometimes dangerous. Many recall the dangers of cross-border trade and the ways gangs operate in getting people in and out of South Africa without papers. Others highlight the dangers of mining, operating in unsafe mines subject to collapse as well as the gang violence typical of mining areas. Many have returned from the ‘classic’ migration to South Africa due to xenophobic violence and discrimination, preferring a safer, quieter life than being subject to harassment and violence in South Africa’s townships or mining areas. Others get involved in crime in South Africa and must flee home to escape the law. The COVID-19 pandemic saw a return home of many young men unable to make ends meet in the isolated and challenging times under lockdown in South Africa. Finding some land-based projects to eke out basic living was for them definitely preferable. ‘Projects’: new rural livelihoods for young people A common way of doing this is to focus on what young people term, ‘projects’. In discussions, people talk about how livelihoods are composed in terms of different ‘projects’ and future ambitions are often defined in terms of ‘projects’, often on different plots of land in different places (see earlier blog). Projects take many forms: a broiler operation, an irrigation plot for horticulture, a piggery, a fish farm, turkey sales or some rabbits. They require some investment (chicken runs, pig sty, ponds, pumps/pipes, a vehicle), usually from outside income. They often require some technical skill and capital investment but usually limited labour. They are commonly intensive, high value/high return operations. And crucially they generally require little land. They also are highly flexible, scaling up and down depending on circumstances, making them compatible with other ‘projects’ and livelihood activities within the household, as part of a stop-start pattern of accumulation. Sometimes they link to collective groups – for savings, marketing etc. – such as with chicken projects run by women, but very often these are individual enterprises, perhaps with several running concurrently within a household and young men and women focusing individually on different projects. Livelihood activities of today’s young people therefore look very different to those of the earlier generation. The standard patterns of gendered divisions of labour no longer apply. Men may be as likely to engage in trading, while women can lead on farming operations. Equally, as discussed in an earlier blog, the demographic cycle has changed; there is no longer a predictable sequence of household establishment, male migration, women’s farm management and household care, accompanied by steady farm-based accumulation based on sporadic surplus grain crop sales and livestock births, followed by retirement at the rural home. Instead a much more opportunistic, variegated pattern is seen over time. Changing gender relations As previous blogs have highlighted, old norms of gender relations are changing, as ‘traditions’ of inheritance and land ownership and use shift in response to new demands. With land-based livelihood activities – often intensified, scattered in different sites and with often unclear tenure rights – combining with off-farm work, frequently including short-term migration, both men and women are following different patterns of livelihoods to their parents’ generations. In the past, what was a ‘farm’, where ‘home’ was and where people migrated to over what period was more predictable (see earlier blogs), with gender roles more clear-cut. Today, a household – sometimes involving several generations as young people establish homes on their parents’ subdivided farms – must compose a livelihood in a more flexible way, across activities and spaces. Within a newly established young person’s household, men and women may decide on different roles that upset conventional patterns. Women may be more focused on intensive agricultural production through irrigation and associated marketing of horticulture products, while men may take on other activities. Both men and women migrate, meaning that, at different times, they each must take on caring roles in looking after children, provisioning the household or caring for older parents. The vital tasks social reproduction are therefore distributed across both young men and women depending on circumstances. Needs must, and conventional, ‘traditional’ roles may be reimagined as a result, even if these new roles are not shouted about and may even be a subject of shame and embarrassment (for men in particular). This is less about a progressive move to a more liberated gender-neutral future as patriarchy is of course still very present, but because conditions require new ways of doing things, old patterns have to be challenged and over-turned. The case below illustrates how, over time, gender roles have changed in response to the needs of the household, with both the husband and wife, BM, taking on new roles in response. Case 1. BM, Wondedzo, Masvingo I was born was born in 1991 and grew up in Madzivanyika village in Gutu. My husband used to work as a panel beater in Beitbridge but has since left the job and returned home where he is now helping me to manage the retail (shop) business and engage in farming on a fulltime basis. While he was still employed as a panel beater, we managed to buy two commercial stands (general dealer shop and bottle store) from the Ministry of Lands for USD400 each at Wondedzo centre. We also augmented the income from my husband by selling cattle to finance the construction of these stores. My husband is now farming fulltime and helps me with the management of the shop. Today, I have 4 children, two boys and two girls. I had my first born in 2011. Two of my children are already attending school. My husband and I are still living at my mother-in-law’s homestead and work together on all our activities. Reinventing livelihoods In sum, young people find it difficult to establish themselves, but access to land is key. Not necessarily to ‘farm’ in the conventional sense, but as the basis for ‘projects’ linked to land. This is important for both men and women, often running separate enterprises within a household, which are frequently reliant on investment from outside sources. Such projects are combined with an array of different livelihood activities that change over time. Much of this is precarious work, which makes accumulation – and even basic social reproduction – often extremely challenging. The result is a stop-start process of accumulation, reliant on a diverse bricolage of livelihood activities, often mobile, with land at the core. Young people in A1 land reform areas are not replicating the patterns seen in previous generations and not presenting themselves as conventional ‘farmers’, but more livelihood bricoleurs who are part of a complex mix of rural-urban ‘classes of labour’. Illustrations of this livelihood bricolage amongst diverse young people from across sites is the focus of the last blog in this series, which offers a series of case studies to highlight the complex combination of activities that are undertaken and how these contribute to young people’s livelihoods, and so offering a glimpse of what the future of land reform areas inhabited by the next generation will look like. |
