Negotiating work and masculinities through care and development in community groups in Dar es Salaam

• Main Author: Lawrie, Sabina Louise
• Published: University of Glasgow 2018
• Subjects: G Geography (General)
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.732782

Work is a privileged activity, often considered central to a meaningful life and sustainable development. However, the ways in which different types of work such as volunteering, domestic labour and paid work intersect, as well as their impacts on people’s lives are not well understood. This thesis aims to better understand the work that people do, the value attached to work, the gendered nature of work, and the relationship between work, decision making, and development narratives. I draw upon the research I conducted with four different community groups in Dar es Salaam, which used a mixture of interviews, focus groups and participant observation. I reflect upon the use of translation in research, in particular questioning the impact upon research of linguistically hybrid interviews. Participants engaged in many different and intersecting types of work, which fulfilled different needs, and in which wage earning is not always prioritised. Young men in particular used their work as volunteers, through which they engage in labours of care, to negotiate their own masculinities in a context of severe un(der)employment in Dar es Salaam. By identifying their work as volunteering, participants benefit from an increased sense of self-worth and use this identity as a primary way to define themselves. For many of the young men, it is in part through this volunteer work that they achieve markers of masculinity such as leadership and status. The spaces of the community groups are continually being negotiated through work done, and values assigned to different work. I suggest ways in which a greater understanding of work and masculinity within these contexts could influence development interventions in a bid to make interventions both more equitable and more relevant to those they are intended to help.