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Logics of affordability and worth: Gendered consumption in rural Uganda

Author

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  • Catherine Dolan
  • Claire Gordon
  • Laurel Steinfield
  • Julie Hennegan

Abstract

This article explores logics of affordability and worth within rural Ugandan households. Through an analysis of how worth is ascribed to certain goods, from the morally ambiguous personal consumption of alcohol and beauty products to the “responsible” category of educational spending and sanitary pads, the article demonstrates how gender norms and anxieties are marked and sustained in the consumption practices of the household, constituting what is deemed necessary, affordable, and responsible. Moral obligation is differentially distributed between genders: women are deemed responsible for household expenditure, their personal consumption preferences constrained, whereas men are able to delimit a sphere of personal consumption separate from the household, with limited accountability to its moral requirements. The gendered nature of power relations is thus revealed both in the apportioning of moral duty and in the construction of affordability through which consumption is enabled.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine Dolan & Claire Gordon & Laurel Steinfield & Julie Hennegan, 2020. "Logics of affordability and worth: Gendered consumption in rural Uganda," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 93-107, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:7:y:2020:i:1:p:93-107
    DOI: 10.1002/sea2.12157
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    Cited by:

    1. Dolores Koenig, 2021. "Labor‐saving technologies in Manantali, Mali," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 219-233, June.

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