"Posted home": migration, tuberculosis and structural violence in Maphisa, Zimbabwe (original) (raw)

Structural violence underscored by the political economy plays a pivotal role in the epidemics of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in Zimbabwe. Political and economic hardship make migration across the border for work necessary for rural locals in Zimbabwe in order to remit money or goods from South Africa to families at home. The potential for the economic stabilisation of rural households through the remittance of goods and money is threatened, however, when what comes home includes “baby parcels” — infants who are sent home for relatives to care for as the parents in the diaspora are unable to do so — or when breadwinners return home ill. Based on a study of families in Maphisa, a rural growth point in south-western Zimbabwe, this article illustrates that the movement of babies and ill adults from an urban migratory setting to a rural one at home due to hardship is rooted in structural violence that perpetuates poverty and vulnerability, often leading to disease and death. Rural areas have become dependent on remittances; when ill persons are remitted instead of, or alongside, household goods, home becomes a place where the elderly care for the young, and where the sick die.