LIBERALIZATION AND THE social and economic changes that accompany it, along with the devastating Aids pandemic, have had profound effects on the lives, livelihoods and survival strategies of the poor in sub-Saharan Africa. This book examines some of these effects in Zimbabwe, and looks especially at new patterns of migration and mobility, as people find ways of adapting to shrinking economic margins. Within Zimbabwe, there is a surge of movement towards small towns, and the growth of these towns is a spatial expression of new realities. Different places, the author points out, offer different advantages and disadvantages at different times. In the current situation, small towns present certain advantages to the country’s poor – a way of straddling the urban and the rural, taking advantage, in a sense, of the best of both worlds.

In order to explore this phenomenon, Andersson looked at the small town of Rusape, where she interviewed 143 migrants, held focus groups, and examined town council records and newspaper articles. The study considers individual decision-making in the context of larger structural forces, making Rusape an interesting case study for the interplay between agency and structure. Andersson’s focus, however, is not on the town itself but, rather, on how lower living costs, higher food security and greater employment opportunities serve as motivations for moving to Rusape, often from larger urban centres. Some of the advantages offered by Rusape include the availability of rental housing, the affordability of land, the possibility of avoiding transportation costs, the ability to engage in urban agriculture and the greater proximity to rural homes. Most respondents did not view Rusape as a permanent solution, however; life in the city was still seen as more desirable by most, and a return to rural homes was still perceived as a long-term exit option.

An interesting facet of current phenomena is the changing relationship with extended households. The traditional pattern has been households split between rural and urban areas, with benefits of different kinds flowing in both directions. This network of relations remains important in decisions about mobility, but the hardships imposed by structural adjustment and Aids have meant that the poor in many cases have been forced to decrease the size of their sphere of support, restricting it to those in the immediate co-resident household, cutting ties to more distant relatives, and being guided in decision-making by more individual considerations. This suggests increasing vulnerability and internal exclusion for many. The book offers a chance to understand in more detail how this vulnerability affects individual households and their decision-making.