Pandemic Precarity, Crisis-Living, and Food Insecurity: Female Zimbabwean Migrants in South Africa

Sujata Ramachandran, Jonathan Crush, Godfrey Tawodzera & Elizabeth Opiyo Onyango  •  Our chapter examines the neglected connections between migration, gender, and food security in the context of the unfolding Covid-19 pandemic, using the case study of female-headed Zimbabwean migrant households in South Africa. We draw on the concept of “migrant pandemic precarity” to highlight the distinctive pandemic-related negative turns and vulnerabilities encountered by migrant households stretched across sending and receiving areas. We contend that unchecked food insecurity is a core dimension of migrant pandemic precarity and food security constitutes an important measure to evaluate the unequal and interconnected outcomes of Covid-19. Drawing on the findings of a new survey with Zimbabwean migrants in Cape Town, we show that female migrants and their dependants experienced considerable deterioration in their food security. Women constitute a significant cohort of mixed migratory flows to South Africa tied to Zimbabwe’s prolonged economic crisis. Many migrant households in poorer urban neighborhoods already faced food security-related challenges before the onset of the pandemic due to ‘crisis-living’. Continued exposure to Zimbabwe’s ongoing crisis, the worsening of these circumstances immediately before and during the pandemic and increased remitting pressures made this cohort especially susceptible to the pandemic shocks.