Pachedu‐Zenzele in the Diaspora: Promoting Sexual Health Amongst Zimbabweans in England
| Date | 01 December 2008 |
| Published date | 01 December 2008 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2008.00489.x |
| Author | Martha Judith Chinouya,Eileen O’Keefe |
Pachedu-Zenzele in the Diaspora:
Promoting Sexual Health Amongst
Zimbabweans in England
Martha Judith Chinouya* and Eileen O’Keefe*
ABSTRACT
Migrants have been found to be at enhanced risk for the Human Immune
Deficiency Virus (HIV) in comparison with settled populations. As they
migrate, they often bring with them their traditions and cultural values,
which may influence the ways they access or make sense of health promo-
tion interventions in the host country. In the diaspora, should they experi-
ence compromised citizenship, marked by an unresolved immigration
status, some may need to remain invisible and this may include not access-
ing or presenting late for vital health care interventions. Addressing the
needs of such invisible populations is key to health promotion work and
paramount to public health interests. This paper describes how ever-chang-
ing ‘‘traditions’’, in particular the notions of Pachedu and Zenzele, were
harnessed to develop ethically grounded sexual health care interventions
amongst Zimbabweans in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. These interven-
tions were delivered in mundane settings that formed some of the key
everyday networks of this population. The reinvention of ‘‘tradition’’ for
the purposes of delivering health and social care interventions has been
one of the cornerstones of health promotion interventions in Africa, where
the rates of HIV are some of the highest in the world. The concept of
Pachedu harnessed confidentiality in the delivery of sexual health interven-
tions with Zenzele calling for communal involvement in such initiatives. A
key point that resulted in the success of this intervention was partnership
work between statutory providers and the local Zimbabwean population
throughout the project’s life span. Rather than being construed as passive
recipients of health and social care interventions, local Zimbabweans and
their statutory partners were engaged in mutual capacity building initia-
tives. Local Zimbabweans were also engaged and consulted throughout,
* Department of Applied Social Science, London Metropolitan University.
2008 The Authors
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Journal Compilation 2008 IOM
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, International Migration Vol. 46 (5) 2008
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0020-7985
doi:10.1111/j.1468-2435.2008.00489.x
from the conceptualization of the project, delivery, monitoring, and
dissemination of the findings.
INTRODUCTION
International declarations on human rights recognise the right to health
as a fundamental aspect of well-being. This right to health includes the
right to health related information including sexual and reproductive
health (United Nations, 2004). With the advent of HIV, health promo-
tion interventions in Africa draw on tradition to address the challenges
faced in promoting rights to sexual health information. In Uganda, the
notion of senga (father’s sister) played a pivotal role in the education of
young females on sexual health matters (Muyinda et al., 2001). Research
findings suggest that the reinvention of the senga institution offers
potential to improve access to high quality sex education for adolescent
girls (Muyinda et al., 2001). In Zimbabwe, the recreation of a non-gen-
dered dare, a traditional gendered discussion zone, in the form of a
radio program called Chakafukidza Dzimba Matenga (‘‘what covers
houses are only rooftops’’) enabled the discussion of sex, customary
practices and relationship matters (Mano, 2004). This paper focuses on
how ‘tradition’ was harnessed to promote the health of migrant Zim-
babweans in Luton, England. The concept of reinventing tradition for
the purpose of promoting rights to health for migrant Zimbabweans is a
highly complex and contested terrain, as ‘tradition’ is always socially
constructed, reproduced and linked to problematic power relations. This
paper will show, using the Pachedu-Zenzele concepts, how ‘‘tradition’’
was reproduced with a group of migrants who described themselves as
Zimbabweans.
On migrating to England, Zimbabweans bring with them a set of tradi-
tions. Some of these gendered traditions are colonial (re)inventions
underscored by capitalism (Robert, 1984) that have been mixed with
postcolonial modes to organise communal and individual life (Mano,
2004) in a globalised world (O’Keefe and Chinouya, 2004). On arriving
in England they bring with them a discursively complex hybrid form of
being ‘‘Zimbabwean’’, which embraces pre-colonial, colonial and postco-
lonial ways of being. This complex form of being is negotiated to fit in
with their new identities as global denizens. Denizens are permanent res-
idents who practically hold the full set of rights accorded to citizens,
except voting rights on the national level (Faist, 2000: 275). Faist (2000)
argues that the tie between denizens and the state is not as thick as that
between citizens and the state, but not as thin as between aliens and the
72 Chinouya and O’Keefe
2008 The Authors
Journal Compilation 2008 IOM
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