Pub Date : 2022-04-03DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2022.2080430
A. Manji
The lawyer Silvanus Otieno died in Nairobi in December 1986. His Luo relatives wished to bury him in his rural homeland of Siaya in accordance with what they held to be Luo custom. His wife, Wambui, who was Kikuyu, went to court to ask for permission to bury him at their urban home in Nairobi. The course of events can be briefly summarised as follows. On it becoming apparent, soon after his death, that his family and his clansmen differed as to the appropriate place to bury SM, as he was widely known, his widow sought an injunction in the High Court restraining the clan from removing his body from the Nairobi City Mortuary and a declaration that she was entitled to claim her husband’s body for burial at their farm in Ngong, near Nairobi. Her application succeeded. Upon the clan’s application, the Court of Appeal set aside the High Court ruling and ordered that the matter be set down for trial. The trial was conducted before Justice Bosire, who rendered his decision on Friday, 14 February 1987. He directed that the deceased’s body be handed over to the clan and the widow jointly or to either one separately, for burial in Siaya. The clan’s wishes were thus granted. Wambui appealed, the Court of Appeal delivering its judgment on 15 May 1987. It dismissed the appeal and ordered that SM be buried in Siaya in accordance with Luo custom. Commenting on the case, the author of a casebook on Kenyan customary law, Eugene Cotran, described the case as a landmark for customary law and in Kenyan legal history (Cotran 1989; for a discussion of the customary law aspects of the case see Manji 2002). In 1992, David William Cohen and E.S. Atieno Odhiambo published their study of the case under the title Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power in Kenya.
律师Silvanus Otieno于1986年12月在内罗毕去世。他的卢奥族亲戚希望按照他们所认为的卢奥族习俗，把他葬在他的家乡乡下的西亚亚。他的妻子万布伊(Wambui)是基库尤人，她向法院请求允许将他安葬在内罗毕的家中。事件的经过可以简单概括如下。在他死后不久，他的家人和他的部族显然在埋葬他的适当地点问题上存在分歧，因为他是众所周知的，他的遗孀向高等法院申请禁令，禁止部族将他的尸体从内罗毕市停尸房移走，并声明她有权要求将她丈夫的尸体安葬在内罗毕附近恩贡的农场。她的申请成功了。在氏族的申请下，上诉法院撤销了高等法院的裁决，并下令将此事进行审判。审判由Bosire法官进行，他于1987年2月14日星期五作出裁决。他指示将死者的遗体交给氏族和寡妇共同或分别，以便在西亚埋葬。氏族的愿望就这样实现了。Wambui提出上诉，上诉法院于1987年5月15日作出判决。法院驳回了上诉，并下令按照罗族习俗将SM埋葬在Siaya。肯尼亚习惯法案例手册的作者Eugene Cotran在评论此案时将此案描述为习惯法和肯尼亚法律史上的一个里程碑(Cotran 1989;有关本案习惯法方面的讨论，请参见Manji 2002)。1992年，David William Cohen和E.S. Atieno Odhiambo以《埋葬SM:肯尼亚的知识政治和权力社会学》为题发表了他们对此案的研究。
{"title":"Rereading Burying SM as a ‘Social Reproduction Text’","authors":"A. Manji","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2022.2080430","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2022.2080430","url":null,"abstract":"The lawyer Silvanus Otieno died in Nairobi in December 1986. His Luo relatives wished to bury him in his rural homeland of Siaya in accordance with what they held to be Luo custom. His wife, Wambui, who was Kikuyu, went to court to ask for permission to bury him at their urban home in Nairobi. The course of events can be briefly summarised as follows. On it becoming apparent, soon after his death, that his family and his clansmen differed as to the appropriate place to bury SM, as he was widely known, his widow sought an injunction in the High Court restraining the clan from removing his body from the Nairobi City Mortuary and a declaration that she was entitled to claim her husband’s body for burial at their farm in Ngong, near Nairobi. Her application succeeded. Upon the clan’s application, the Court of Appeal set aside the High Court ruling and ordered that the matter be set down for trial. The trial was conducted before Justice Bosire, who rendered his decision on Friday, 14 February 1987. He directed that the deceased’s body be handed over to the clan and the widow jointly or to either one separately, for burial in Siaya. The clan’s wishes were thus granted. Wambui appealed, the Court of Appeal delivering its judgment on 15 May 1987. It dismissed the appeal and ordered that SM be buried in Siaya in accordance with Luo custom. Commenting on the case, the author of a casebook on Kenyan customary law, Eugene Cotran, described the case as a landmark for customary law and in Kenyan legal history (Cotran 1989; for a discussion of the customary law aspects of the case see Manji 2002). In 1992, David William Cohen and E.S. Atieno Odhiambo published their study of the case under the title Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power in Kenya.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43328424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-03DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2022.2088472
Hajar Idrissi, Salma Takky, Hind Idrissi
ABSTRACT Drawing on social identity approach, comprising of social identity theory and self-categorisation theory, this article compares the ways in which public and private university students in Morocco approach the controversial relationship between citizenship and identity. By revealing students’ self-identification and the role socio-economic factors have in this process, we seek to gain knowledge about the extent to which citizenship is perceived as a legal status as opposed to membership in a political community and how the transformation inherent in global market capitalism and the distribution of resources affect the youth’s behaviours and attitudes towards social action. The sample represented the public and private dichotomy divide through 150 participants from four differently located Moroccan universities, namely Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Mohammed V University, Al-Akhawayn University and International University of Rabat. Data were collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire and a semi-structured interview and were analysed using a mixed method approach to triangulate findings and ensure trustworthiness.
{"title":"Citizenship Attitudes and Social Inequality Among Moroccan University Students","authors":"Hajar Idrissi, Salma Takky, Hind Idrissi","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2022.2088472","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2022.2088472","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Drawing on social identity approach, comprising of social identity theory and self-categorisation theory, this article compares the ways in which public and private university students in Morocco approach the controversial relationship between citizenship and identity. By revealing students’ self-identification and the role socio-economic factors have in this process, we seek to gain knowledge about the extent to which citizenship is perceived as a legal status as opposed to membership in a political community and how the transformation inherent in global market capitalism and the distribution of resources affect the youth’s behaviours and attitudes towards social action. The sample represented the public and private dichotomy divide through 150 participants from four differently located Moroccan universities, namely Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Mohammed V University, Al-Akhawayn University and International University of Rabat. Data were collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire and a semi-structured interview and were analysed using a mixed method approach to triangulate findings and ensure trustworthiness.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41913921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-03DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2022.2142763
Robin K. Crigler
ABSTRACT The New African poet, playwright, and intellectual H.I.E. Dhlomo is often cited as one of twentieth-century South Africa’s most important cultural figures. In contrast to his celebrated theoretical writings, however, Dhlomo’s actual literary work tends to receive mixed reviews from scholars. This paper seeks to reassess Dhlomo’s much-maligned use of Romantic and Gothic tropes by focusing on two of his lesser-known plays: Men and Women and The Expert. These plays, which date from towards the end of Dhlomo’s playwriting career, have never been published, yet reveal a great deal about both the nature of his literary project and the conditions of Black cultural production in segregation-era South Africa. Indeed, I argue that these plays engage in some of the most radical social critiques found anywhere in pre-apartheid South African drama, and, furthermore that the melodramatic and incongruous elements of these works are essential to their intended impact. Having experienced segregation-era South African society as an unfolding nightmare, for H.I.E. Dhlomo laughter and horror were intimately related. Ultimately, I contend that Dhlomo’s linkage of laughter to the supernatural and the Gothic marks an important moment in South African history, illustrating powerfully the dashed hopes and aspirations of the New African generation within the context of tightening white philanthropic control.
{"title":"‘Then … Horror! Horror!': Laughter, Terror and Rebellion in the Unpublished Plays of H.I.E. Dhlomo","authors":"Robin K. Crigler","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2022.2142763","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2022.2142763","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The New African poet, playwright, and intellectual H.I.E. Dhlomo is often cited as one of twentieth-century South Africa’s most important cultural figures. In contrast to his celebrated theoretical writings, however, Dhlomo’s actual literary work tends to receive mixed reviews from scholars. This paper seeks to reassess Dhlomo’s much-maligned use of Romantic and Gothic tropes by focusing on two of his lesser-known plays: Men and Women and The Expert. These plays, which date from towards the end of Dhlomo’s playwriting career, have never been published, yet reveal a great deal about both the nature of his literary project and the conditions of Black cultural production in segregation-era South Africa. Indeed, I argue that these plays engage in some of the most radical social critiques found anywhere in pre-apartheid South African drama, and, furthermore that the melodramatic and incongruous elements of these works are essential to their intended impact. Having experienced segregation-era South African society as an unfolding nightmare, for H.I.E. Dhlomo laughter and horror were intimately related. Ultimately, I contend that Dhlomo’s linkage of laughter to the supernatural and the Gothic marks an important moment in South African history, illustrating powerfully the dashed hopes and aspirations of the New African generation within the context of tightening white philanthropic control.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46752393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-03DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2022.2103791
Jeroen Lorist, Mercy T. Mbabazi, Eileen Moyer
ABSTRACT In a context of rapid social change in post-conflict West Nile, Uganda, internationally funded non-governmental organisations and the state have joined efforts to reduce gender-based violence (GBV) amongst Lugbara people. That women rarely report GBV is often interpreted as an indicator that such interventions are failing because of flawed design or cultural recalcitrance. Seeking to understand women’s infrequent reporting of GBV, our research explored the relationship between a GBV intervention and local patriarchal modes of power. Focusing on ‘traditional’ modes of handling domestic violence cases, we argue that this biopolitical sphere provides a site for the reassertion of patriarchy in unexpected ways. To circumvent GBV interventions that threaten patriarchal norms male clan leaders reinvent kinship traditions. Using this case, we build upon Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s influential ‘invention of tradition’ frame to advance theoretical understandings of the fluidity of patriarchy. The men and women who participated in our research understood domestic violence as best handled through male-controlled kinship structures that centred on bride price and land rights. Our findings provide grounds for rethinking theories of patriarchy and offer insights for anti-GBV programmes that generally privilege police and legal involvement, envisage patriarchy as fixed, and focus on the nuclear household.
{"title":"The Fluidity of Patriarchy: Kinship, Tradition and the Prevention of Gendered Violence in Lugbaraland, Uganda","authors":"Jeroen Lorist, Mercy T. Mbabazi, Eileen Moyer","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2022.2103791","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2022.2103791","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In a context of rapid social change in post-conflict West Nile, Uganda, internationally funded non-governmental organisations and the state have joined efforts to reduce gender-based violence (GBV) amongst Lugbara people. That women rarely report GBV is often interpreted as an indicator that such interventions are failing because of flawed design or cultural recalcitrance. Seeking to understand women’s infrequent reporting of GBV, our research explored the relationship between a GBV intervention and local patriarchal modes of power. Focusing on ‘traditional’ modes of handling domestic violence cases, we argue that this biopolitical sphere provides a site for the reassertion of patriarchy in unexpected ways. To circumvent GBV interventions that threaten patriarchal norms male clan leaders reinvent kinship traditions. Using this case, we build upon Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s influential ‘invention of tradition’ frame to advance theoretical understandings of the fluidity of patriarchy. The men and women who participated in our research understood domestic violence as best handled through male-controlled kinship structures that centred on bride price and land rights. Our findings provide grounds for rethinking theories of patriarchy and offer insights for anti-GBV programmes that generally privilege police and legal involvement, envisage patriarchy as fixed, and focus on the nuclear household.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44446099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-03DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2022.2141686
Emmanuel Adeniyi
ABSTRACT The #EndSARS protests swept through Nigeria in October 2020 providing opportunities for Nigerian youths to demonstrate against police violence, poor governance and daunting socio-economic challenges plaguing their country. Drawing on the protesters’ collective sentiments on Twitter, this article interrogates youth agency, ethics of force in policing and collective action of #EndSARS protest actors against predatory policing. It examines the deployment of digital affordances in protest movements and discusses how #EndSARS protesters initiated frames of collective action, agency and injustice to identify problems, ventilate their grievances, attribute blame, mobilise themselves and articulate solutions. Using the cultural theory of social movements, it argues that the protesters enacted frames through discursive strategies to express ideological views and achieve specific purposes. The article further employs Ruth Wodak’s discursive paradigms to investigate the dynamics of in-group and out-group categorisations in #EndSARS protest movement. The discursive mechanisms are also employed to study the creation of stereotypes, legitimisation of protest acts and mobilisation of aggrieved Nigerians against police brutality.
{"title":"‘We're now the Walking Dead’: Predatory Policing, Youth Agency and Framing in Nigeria’s #EndSARS Social Activism","authors":"Emmanuel Adeniyi","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2022.2141686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2022.2141686","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The #EndSARS protests swept through Nigeria in October 2020 providing opportunities for Nigerian youths to demonstrate against police violence, poor governance and daunting socio-economic challenges plaguing their country. Drawing on the protesters’ collective sentiments on Twitter, this article interrogates youth agency, ethics of force in policing and collective action of #EndSARS protest actors against predatory policing. It examines the deployment of digital affordances in protest movements and discusses how #EndSARS protesters initiated frames of collective action, agency and injustice to identify problems, ventilate their grievances, attribute blame, mobilise themselves and articulate solutions. Using the cultural theory of social movements, it argues that the protesters enacted frames through discursive strategies to express ideological views and achieve specific purposes. The article further employs Ruth Wodak’s discursive paradigms to investigate the dynamics of in-group and out-group categorisations in #EndSARS protest movement. The discursive mechanisms are also employed to study the creation of stereotypes, legitimisation of protest acts and mobilisation of aggrieved Nigerians against police brutality.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45749760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2022.2027227
Clementine Nishimwe
ABSTRACT Monetary relations were embedded in the social practices of the Saint Aidan’s Anglican Church in South Africa. Consequently, when money was needed to employ a priest, additional dimensions of financial relatedness were established. According to Bonnie Hagerty, Judith Lynch-Sauer, Kathleen Patusky and Maria Bouwsema (1993), relatedness is the movement in a circle of connectedness, disconnectedness, parallelism, and enmeshment. This article discusses how money mediated migrant women’s experiences of relatedness while giving them a sense of belonging in the context of migration, xenophobia and other gender-related challenges. This paper demonstrates the way money shaped people’s relationships in a faith community where money was already embedded in the church’s social practices. I argue that St Aidan’s Anglican Church, like many other South African mainstream churches in a similar context, practises institutional prosperity theology. This paper demonstrates that the monetary relations define people’s sense of belonging. The prominence of monetary relations and the commodification of belonging at St Aidan’s suggest that, as an institution, it should be prosperous for the survival of people’s fellowship.
{"title":"Institutional Prosperity: No Money, No Church, No Fellowship in South Africa? Migrant Women’s Relationships in a Context of Lack at Saint Aidan’s Anglican Church","authors":"Clementine Nishimwe","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2022.2027227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2022.2027227","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Monetary relations were embedded in the social practices of the Saint Aidan’s Anglican Church in South Africa. Consequently, when money was needed to employ a priest, additional dimensions of financial relatedness were established. According to Bonnie Hagerty, Judith Lynch-Sauer, Kathleen Patusky and Maria Bouwsema (1993), relatedness is the movement in a circle of connectedness, disconnectedness, parallelism, and enmeshment. This article discusses how money mediated migrant women’s experiences of relatedness while giving them a sense of belonging in the context of migration, xenophobia and other gender-related challenges. This paper demonstrates the way money shaped people’s relationships in a faith community where money was already embedded in the church’s social practices. I argue that St Aidan’s Anglican Church, like many other South African mainstream churches in a similar context, practises institutional prosperity theology. This paper demonstrates that the monetary relations define people’s sense of belonging. The prominence of monetary relations and the commodification of belonging at St Aidan’s suggest that, as an institution, it should be prosperous for the survival of people’s fellowship.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45457113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2022.2047611
Simon Mutebi
ABSTRACT Despite anthropology’s interest in masculinity and sexuality, little emphasis has been put on the alternative masculinities of young men experiencing sexual performance concerns. This paper explored different forms of enacting alternative ways of masculinities and how the concepts of ‘field’ and ‘failing bodies’ account for simultaneous enactment of masculinities, depending on the situation in which young men find themselves. Drawing on findings from my ethnographic research among young men in Mwanza city, I argue that when young men’s intentions of performing masculinities, which are centred on sexual aspects, are disrupted by (perceived) changes in their sexual performances, then these young men are prompted to take an ‘alternative outlook’ and experience ‘new’ feelings, thoughts and enactments of being a ‘real man’ in relation to their partners. For instance, while some young men in urban Mwanza developed more intimate relationship with their partners by becoming very close, humble, polite and obedient, others simultaneously enacted multiple and potentially contradictory forms of masculinities such as becoming very aggressive to their sexual partners, increasing their intimacy with their sexual partners, emotional expression, love and care. In summary, my findings indicate that alternative forms of masculinities are not fixed but fluid, dynamic, ambivalent, and they differ depending on the context in which young men find themselves. This fact draws our attention to the importance of further exploring how young men enact masculinities and have sexual intercourse despite virility concerns.
{"title":"Staying a ‘Real Man’: Sexual Performance Concerns and Alternative Masculinities Among Young Men in Urban Tanzania","authors":"Simon Mutebi","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2022.2047611","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2022.2047611","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Despite anthropology’s interest in masculinity and sexuality, little emphasis has been put on the alternative masculinities of young men experiencing sexual performance concerns. This paper explored different forms of enacting alternative ways of masculinities and how the concepts of ‘field’ and ‘failing bodies’ account for simultaneous enactment of masculinities, depending on the situation in which young men find themselves. Drawing on findings from my ethnographic research among young men in Mwanza city, I argue that when young men’s intentions of performing masculinities, which are centred on sexual aspects, are disrupted by (perceived) changes in their sexual performances, then these young men are prompted to take an ‘alternative outlook’ and experience ‘new’ feelings, thoughts and enactments of being a ‘real man’ in relation to their partners. For instance, while some young men in urban Mwanza developed more intimate relationship with their partners by becoming very close, humble, polite and obedient, others simultaneously enacted multiple and potentially contradictory forms of masculinities such as becoming very aggressive to their sexual partners, increasing their intimacy with their sexual partners, emotional expression, love and care. In summary, my findings indicate that alternative forms of masculinities are not fixed but fluid, dynamic, ambivalent, and they differ depending on the context in which young men find themselves. This fact draws our attention to the importance of further exploring how young men enact masculinities and have sexual intercourse despite virility concerns.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49609422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2022.2060797
Tendai Mangena, Oliver Nyambi
ABSTRACT Home, crisis and migration have defined the experience and concept of being post-colonial Zimbabwe(an) for the past two decades. Much has been written about the post-coloniality of this entangled experience and about how, in particular, literary fiction re-discourses normative perspectives of the Zimbabwean crisis, the home, the unhomely and trans-national out-migration. Rarely considered a serious discursive site from which to (re)know the intricacies inhabiting versions, configurations and symbolisms of the concept of home (especially in the context of crisis and mobility), the Zimbabwean short story has largely remained underexplored. This article recentres the short story of migration (Farai Mpofu’s ‘The Letter’ and NoViolet Mkha’s ‘Shamisos’) in examining how, as socio-cultural and geo-political constructs, diaspora and ‘home’ homes manifest and orchestrate temporalities, processes, relations, attitudes, places, people, and discourses that shape a certain understanding of Zimbabwe as a contested post-colonial ‘home’. On the one hand, the protagonists in the stories live precariously in ‘refuge’ new homes (Botswana and South Africa respectively), and on the other, they attempt to make sense of their precarity through traumatic re-memories of their haunting ‘home’ home (Zimbabwe). We interpret this connection between these unstable ‘homes’ using a conceptual frame that we term ‘ambivalent continuum of precarity’, a concept we coined from the notions of ‘precarity of place’ and ‘continuum of precarity’ advanced by Susan Banki and Julia Ann McWilliams and Sally Wesley Bonet respectively. Our analysis of literary representations of the home(s) therefore focuses on their complex, multiple and shifting layers, signs, symbolisms and ontologies as constructs that reflect on the crisis of post-coloniality manifest in precarious mobilities and ambivalent homes.
{"title":"‘Such a Thing Does Not Have a Name in his Country’: Entanglements of Diaspora and ‘Home’ Homes in the Zimbabwean Short Story of Crisis","authors":"Tendai Mangena, Oliver Nyambi","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2022.2060797","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2022.2060797","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Home, crisis and migration have defined the experience and concept of being post-colonial Zimbabwe(an) for the past two decades. Much has been written about the post-coloniality of this entangled experience and about how, in particular, literary fiction re-discourses normative perspectives of the Zimbabwean crisis, the home, the unhomely and trans-national out-migration. Rarely considered a serious discursive site from which to (re)know the intricacies inhabiting versions, configurations and symbolisms of the concept of home (especially in the context of crisis and mobility), the Zimbabwean short story has largely remained underexplored. This article recentres the short story of migration (Farai Mpofu’s ‘The Letter’ and NoViolet Mkha’s ‘Shamisos’) in examining how, as socio-cultural and geo-political constructs, diaspora and ‘home’ homes manifest and orchestrate temporalities, processes, relations, attitudes, places, people, and discourses that shape a certain understanding of Zimbabwe as a contested post-colonial ‘home’. On the one hand, the protagonists in the stories live precariously in ‘refuge’ new homes (Botswana and South Africa respectively), and on the other, they attempt to make sense of their precarity through traumatic re-memories of their haunting ‘home’ home (Zimbabwe). We interpret this connection between these unstable ‘homes’ using a conceptual frame that we term ‘ambivalent continuum of precarity’, a concept we coined from the notions of ‘precarity of place’ and ‘continuum of precarity’ advanced by Susan Banki and Julia Ann McWilliams and Sally Wesley Bonet respectively. Our analysis of literary representations of the home(s) therefore focuses on their complex, multiple and shifting layers, signs, symbolisms and ontologies as constructs that reflect on the crisis of post-coloniality manifest in precarious mobilities and ambivalent homes.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47749621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2022.2045184
J. Hungwe
ABSTRACT This conceptual article falls within the scope of the politics applied to the Covid-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe. The central argument is that the state authority’s redeployment of liberation war ideology in its efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic tends to marginalise what the state authority refers to pejoratively as ‘ordinary Zimbabweans’. Using critical theory as theoretical framework, I argue that the deployment of liberation war ideology as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic concurrently reinforces the dominance of state authority while marginalising ordinary Zimbabweans. Liberation war ideology is premised on the assumption that the state authority has the sole mandate to actively deploy weaponry and personnel to eliminate an enemy on behalf of its citizens. The application of liberation war ideology to the Covid-19 pandemic suggests that the state authority has monopolised and politicised the measures taken against the pandemic.
{"title":"Guns, Truncheons and the Virus: An Analysis of Liberation War Ideology in the Covid-19 Pandemic Response in Zimbabwe","authors":"J. Hungwe","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2022.2045184","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2022.2045184","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This conceptual article falls within the scope of the politics applied to the Covid-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe. The central argument is that the state authority’s redeployment of liberation war ideology in its efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic tends to marginalise what the state authority refers to pejoratively as ‘ordinary Zimbabweans’. Using critical theory as theoretical framework, I argue that the deployment of liberation war ideology as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic concurrently reinforces the dominance of state authority while marginalising ordinary Zimbabweans. Liberation war ideology is premised on the assumption that the state authority has the sole mandate to actively deploy weaponry and personnel to eliminate an enemy on behalf of its citizens. The application of liberation war ideology to the Covid-19 pandemic suggests that the state authority has monopolised and politicised the measures taken against the pandemic.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49426290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2022.2059186
Murray Hunter
INTRODUCTION For the Ruth First Fellowships, of which African Studies is a sponsor, we seek new, younger voices to address a pressing, current issue in the tradition of Ruth First’s activist research. In 2021, we asked applications for the Fellowship to speak to the following key question: What do the radical changes in the public sphere enabled by the power of Big Tech mean for the public sphere? We hoped to tease out the meaning, paradoxes and contradictions of the impact of the big technology companies and their instruments with regard to the public sphere. Murray Hunter responded with a proposal to produce an essay – part narrative, part analysis – meditating on why the private power of giant technology companies seem largely to be treated as more palatable and benign than state power. And, equally importantly, what we need to do about it. At a hybrid event hosted live at The Forge in Braamfontein and online, Hunter delivered the 2021 Ruth First Memorial Lecture in January 2022, with a keynote address by Nanjala Nyabola, writer, political analyst, and activist based in Nairobi, Kenya.
{"title":"Big Tsek: Joburg’s Private Surveillance Network and our Public Deficit","authors":"Murray Hunter","doi":"10.1080/00020184.2022.2059186","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2022.2059186","url":null,"abstract":"INTRODUCTION For the Ruth First Fellowships, of which African Studies is a sponsor, we seek new, younger voices to address a pressing, current issue in the tradition of Ruth First’s activist research. In 2021, we asked applications for the Fellowship to speak to the following key question: What do the radical changes in the public sphere enabled by the power of Big Tech mean for the public sphere? We hoped to tease out the meaning, paradoxes and contradictions of the impact of the big technology companies and their instruments with regard to the public sphere. Murray Hunter responded with a proposal to produce an essay – part narrative, part analysis – meditating on why the private power of giant technology companies seem largely to be treated as more palatable and benign than state power. And, equally importantly, what we need to do about it. At a hybrid event hosted live at The Forge in Braamfontein and online, Hunter delivered the 2021 Ruth First Memorial Lecture in January 2022, with a keynote address by Nanjala Nyabola, writer, political analyst, and activist based in Nairobi, Kenya.","PeriodicalId":51769,"journal":{"name":"African Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48236095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：