ABSTRACT One winter morning in 2006, conflict ensued between firewood vendors (selling wood to passing motorists and also supplying bulk quantities to cities), on the one hand, and a group of predominantly women (and others sympathetic to their grievances), from villages on the southern fringes of the former Shangani Reserves in western Zimbabwe, on the other hand. The latter group confiscated firewood displayed for sale and stockpiles waiting for transportation. Any attempt to explain these acts is often marred by the appeal of ecofeminist discourses on women and the environment and the neo-Malthusian environment, population and conflict thesis. This article seeks to provide an alternative explanation by focusing, rather, on the complex dynamics of a worker-peasantry and the circumstances of women in migrant labour societies. An ethnographic research on villages that participated in the demonstration revealed how male labour migrancy created a social arena where women assumed key roles at both the household and society levels on behalf of the absent men. It highlighted how the women’s circumstances intersected with the particular socio-cultural and natural environment of a migrant labour reserve, resulting in responsibilities and agency through which certain practices that threatened societal interests were challenged.

中文翻译：

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森林保卫者？妇女与津巴布韦西部工农的复杂动态

摘要 2006 年冬天的一个早晨，柴火摊贩（向过往的驾车者出售木材，并向城市供应大量木材）与一群主要是妇女（以及其他同情她们的不满的人）之间发生冲突，他们来自农村另一方面，津巴布韦西部前尚加尼保护区的南部边缘。后一组没收了展示出售的木柴和等待运输的库存。任何试图解释这些行为的尝试都经常被生态女性主义关于妇女和环境的话语以及新马尔萨斯环境、人口和冲突论点的吸引力所破坏。本文试图通过关注工农的复杂动态和移民劳动社会中妇女的境况来提供另一种解释。一项对参与示威的村庄进行的民族志研究揭示了男性劳动力移民如何创造了一个社会舞台，在这个舞台上，女性代表缺席的男性在家庭和社会层面承担了关键角色。它强调了妇女的境况如何与移民劳动力储备的特定社会文化和自然环境相交叉，从而导致责任和机构对威胁社会利益的某些做法提出挑战。