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Esther’s House: One Woman’s ‘Home Economics’ in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe

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African Urban Economies

Abstract

Focusing on the history of one woman and her house in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe, this chapter explores the significance of housing for an individual African household and its livelihood. Colonial policy largely prevented Africans from owning land or houses in towns. In the early 1960s there was a relaxation of policy to allow some areas of home ownership in African townships (by redefining them as part of the ‘Native’ area), but the imposition of UDI (the Unilateral Declaration of Independence) by the illegal Smith regime in 1965 meant that this opening was short-lived. Towards the end of the 1970s, the policy changed again to allow African home ownership as it was deemed that this could be a stabilizing political influence, and would ease the burden of rental subsidies. From 1978 onwards, self-help housing became an important element of government policy. At the time of Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, it is estimated that, of a total family housing stock for Africans in Salisbury (Harare) of 52,000 houses, half were occupied under rent-to-buy contracts or freehold tenure (Davis and Dewar 1989).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Global Gender Studies, Göteborg University, Sweden

    Ann Schlyter (Associate professor)

Authors
  1. Ann Schlyter
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. African Studies Centre, Oxford University, UK

    Deborah Fahy Bryceson

  2. King’s College London, UK

    Deborah Potts

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© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Schlyter, A. (2006). Esther’s House: One Woman’s ‘Home Economics’ in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe. In: Bryceson, D.F., Potts, D. (eds) African Urban Economies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523012_11

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