Intersectional informality and gendered resistance: navigating coffee markets in Mbinga, Tanzania

This paper examines how structurally marginalized actors in Mbinga District, Tanzania—widows, divorced women, landless married women, and youth—engage in informal coffee trade (magoma) amid gendered, generational, and institutional exclusions in the formal cooperative system. Drawing on 48 in-depth interviews and 16 focus group discussions (84 focus group participants), conducted across four villages, this article examines how gendered resistance is enacted within informal coffee markets. Findings show that while informal trade is widespread among all farmer categories, it is especially consequential for those facing barriers such as limited land rights, delayed cooperative payments, and male-dominated decision-making. Widows used informal channels openly through inherited land, divorced women rebuilt livelihoods after losing marital resources, landless married women engaged in covert selling under household surveillance, and youth used informal markets to navigate generational exclusion. Through groups, informal buyers provided timely liquidity, discretion, and flexible quantities, embedding informal trade within moral and relational economies. The study introduces the concept of “intersectional informality” to explain how overlapping inequalities shape not only exclusion from formal value chains but also varied forms of everyday negotiation and resistance. Policy implications highlight the need for cooperative reforms grounded in differentiated lived realities.