Do Zimbabweans Exist

This book examines the triumphs and tribulations of the Zimbabwean national project, providing a radical and critical analysis of the fossilisation of Zimbabwean nationalism against the wider context of African nationalism in general. The book departs radically from the common 'praise-texts' in seriously engaging with the darker aspects of nationalism, including its failure to create the nation-as-people, and to install democracy and a culture of human rights. The author examines how the various people inhabiting the lands between the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers entered history and how violence became a central aspect of the national project of organising Zimbabweans into a collectivity in pursuit of a political end.

What is distinctive about this book is its interdisciplinary approach towards deciphering the complex meanings of President Gabriel Mugabe of Zimbabwe making it possible to evaluate Mugabe from a historical, political, philosophical, gender, literal and decolonial perspectives. It is concerned with capturing various meanings of Mugabeism.

Becoming Zimbabwe is the first comprehensive history of Zimbabwe, spanning the years from 850 to 2008. In 1997, the then Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Morgan Tsvangirai, expressed the need for a 'more open and critical process of writing history in Zimbabwe. ...The history of a nation-in-the-making should not be reduced to a selective heroic tradition, but should be a tolerant and continuing process of questioning and re-examination.' Becoming Zimbabwe tracks the idea of national belonging and citizenship and explores the nature of state rule, the changing contours of the political economy, and the regional and international dimensions of the country's history. In their Introduction, Brian Raftopoulos and Alois Mlambo enlarge on these themes, and Gerald Mazarire's opening chapter sets the pre-colonial background. Sabelo Ndlovu tracks the history up to WW11, and Alois Mlambo reviews developments in the settler economy and the emergence of nationalism leading to UDI in 1965. The politics and economics of the UDI period, and the subsequent war of liberation, are covered by Joesph Mtisi, Munyaradzi Nyakudya and Teresa Barnes. After independence in 1980, Zimbabwe enjoyed a period of buoyancy and hope. James Muzondidya's chapter details the transition 'from buoyancy to crisis', and Brian Raftopoulos concludes the book with an analysis of the decade-long crisis and the global political agreement which followed.

While rivalry is embedded in any sporting event or performance, soccer, the world’s most popular mass spectator sport, has been an emblem of such rivalries since its inception as an organized sport. Some of these rivalries grow to become long-term and perennial by their nature, extent, impact and legacy, from the local to the global level. They represent identities based on widely diverse affiliations of human life—locality, region, nation, continent, community, class, culture, religion, ethnicity, and so on. Yet, at times, such rivalries transcend barriers of space and time, where soccer-clubs, -nations, -personalities, -organizations, -styles and -fans float and compete with intriguing identities. The present volume brings into focus some of the most fascinating and enduring rivalries in the world of soccer. It attempts to encapsulate, analyse and reconstruct those rivalries—between nations, between clubs, between personalities, between styles of play, between fandoms, and between organizations—in a historical perspective in relation to diverse identities, competing ideologies, contestations of power, psychologies of attachment, bonds of loyalty, notions of enmity, articulations of violence, and affinities of fan culture—some of the core manifestations of sporting rivalry. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Soccer & Society.

The epistemic deficiency of contending issue in post-imperial Africa, Zimbabwe in particular influence the author to take readers on the interesting journey of joining the reflections of ghetto life into concept and culture. Ghetto renaissance responding to ghetto condition proved itself to the future, Cultural Revolution confronting Afro-fascist nationalist regimes and the complex global coloniality. Though some challenges, such as identity crisis, self-hate and criminal activities, ghetto cosmology left no stone unturned in making the post-colonial Zimbabwe a practical political project in the prism of decoloniality.

This book examines the ways in which political discourses of crisis and ‘newness’ are (re)produced, circulated, naturalised, received and contested in Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. Going beyond the ordinariness of conventional political, human and social science methods, the book offers new and engaging multi-disciplinary approaches that treat discourse and language as important sites to encounter the politics of contested representations of the Zimbabwean crisis in the wake of the 2017 coup. The book centres discourse on new approaches to contestations around the discursive framing of various aspects of the socio-economic and political crisis related to significant political changes in Zimbabwe post-2017. Contributors in this volume, most of whom experienced the complex transition first-hand, examine some of the ways in which language functions as a socio-cultural and political mechanism for creating imaginaries, circulating, defending and contesting conceptions, visions, perceptions and knowledges of the post-Mugabe turn in the Zimbabwean crisis and its management by the "New Dispensation". This book will be of interest to scholars of African studies, postcolonial studies, language/discourse studies, African politics and culture.

Three years after the advent of Zimbabwes Inclusive Government in February 2009, the country still awaits the elections that people hope will lead to a more enduring political settlement. Zimbabwe: Mired in Transition reviews the experience of recent years assesses the progress that has been made. What is the public mood, and how has it changed? What steps have been taken to reform the media? How important is a new constitution. Although the economy has stabilised to some extent with the adoption of a multi-currency regime, industrial and agricultural production are depressed, and investment inflows are limited; what spaces exist for fiscal reform? Are local authority structures and the state bureaucracy equipped to handle the tasks that will ne asked of them? In terms of two important areas, the book extends its analysis further back than 2009. First, is the issue of emigration. Estimates of the number of Zimbabweans in the diaspora range from three to four million; what impact us this having on national development, and to what extent might the trend of migration be reversed? The second concerns young people, the chapter on which concludes: We already have a lost generation - those who were once called the born frees. Unless positive changes are made, we will still have another. This collection of eleven essays examines in detail some of the pressing questions which Zimbabweans must ask as they chart a way forward.

This book examines why Zimbabwean immigrants in Britain should be viewed as a product of ethno-racial identities and prejudices developed and nurtured during the colonial and post-colonial phases of Zimbabwe’s history. In the absence of shared historic socio-economic or cultural commonalities, the book will tackle the key question: ‘Are Zimbabweans in Britain demarcated by race and ethnicity an imagined community?’ Through an analysis of personal interviews, and secondary and primary sources, it identifies and engages historical experiences that had been instrumental in constructing diasporic identities and integration processes of Zimbabwean immigrants. With most literature tending to create perceptions that Zimbabwean immigrants are a monolithic community of Blacks, the book’s comparative analysis of Blacks, Whites, Coloureds and Asians unveils a multi-racial community fragmented by historic racial and ethnic allegiances and prejudices. It is essential reading for scholars and researchers interested in migration, African Diaspora, and colonial and post-colonial studies.