Domesticity, masculinities and femininities: Complicating gender and dealing with water in Pemba, Mozambique

In Pemba, the main city in northern Mozambique, information campaigns to prevent the outbreak of mosquito-borne diseases focus on the elimination of possible habitats tend to target women rather than men, as they are considered those who are responsible for all domestic work, including managing water. Starting from an understanding of gender as a social construct, in this chapter, we argue that understandings of gender need to be context and history-specific rather than being based on binary thinking that associate femininity with domestic, unpaid work and masculinity with non-domestic, paid work. In Pemba, there are Makhuwa migrant men who work as domestic employees in different households in the neighbourhoods, and are in charge of cleaning, cooking and managing water for domestic uses - tasks that are usually associated with femininity. At the same time, although it is men who are historically responsible for earning a salary and providing for their households, many women also contribute to the household's income. They are in charge of selling the extra water stored in the household's cement tanks. This means that these women need to be aware of the quantity and quality of the stored water and manage the earnings that come from this business. Showing how gender dynamics are nuanced in Pemba, the chapter shows how information campaigns on vector diseases must include the different members of the communities who are in charge of water storage activities as they all are more exposed to the diseases. More generally, it calls for increased liaison between research and the design and implementation of disease prevention programmes.