Re Membering Robert Gabriel Mugabe

This book examines the various ways in which colonialism in Zimbabwe is remembered, looking both at how people analyse, perceive, and interpret the past, and how they rewrite that past, elevating some players and their historical agency. Inspired by the ongoing movement on decoloniality, this book examines the ways in which generations of today question and challenge colonialism’s legacies and their role in Zimbabwe’s collective memories and history. The book analyses the memorialising of both Mugabe and Mnangagwa in their speeches and during the political transition, before going on to trace the continuing impact of colonialism across areas as diverse as dress code, place-naming, agriculture, religion, gender, and in marginalised communities such as the BaKalanga. Drawing on the expertise of Zimbabwean scholars, this book will appeal to researchers of decolonisation, and of African history and memory.

Membering the Rhodesian Linguistic Agenda in Zimbabwe reports on a study carried out in Zimbabwe to ascertain the degree and effect of honouring the colonial linguistic agenda. The book employs an interpretivist philosophy and qualitative research approach that relies on participatory observations, interviewing purposively sampled informants and focus group discussions involving snowball sampled graduates. It was inspired by the Critical Language Policy Theory that considers language choice a critical determinant factor in how communities are administered politically, economically, socioculturally and educationally. It establishes that whereas linguistic imperialism meant to serve as the lifeblood of the Southern Rhodesian colonial machine, the former coloniser ensured coloniality in Zimbabwe by presenting the English language as a sacred media in political, economic, sociocultural and educational settings forever. The study establishes that the only way Zimbabwe and other such post-colonies could find redemption is by eradicating the sacredness of former colonisers’ languages by adding value to all their languages and the indigenous knowledge systems associated with them. It also demonstrates that the bigger the delay, the more is irretrievably lost together with custodians of the languages. This book will be informative for undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in linguistics, communication, sociology, anthropology and history. It may also serve well as a resource to government researchers, politicians and other policymakers.

A rich collection of captivating and remarkable chapters, Writing Namibia Coming of Age presents research of senior academics as well as emerging scholars from Namibia. The book includes wide ranging topics in literature written in English and other Namibian languages, such as German, Afrikaans and Oshiwambo. Almost thirty years after independence, Namibia literature has come of age with new writers experimenting with different genres and varied aspects of literature. As an aesthetic object and social phenomenon, Namibian literature still fulfils the function of social conscience and as new writers emerge, there is ample demonstration that, pluri-vocal as they are, Namibian literary texts relate in a complex manner to the socio-historical trends shaping the country. The Namibian literary-critical tradition continues to paint some versions of Namibia and what we find in this new and highly welcome volume is a canvas of rich voices and perspectives that demonstrate an intricate diversity in terms of culture, language, and themes.

Using political and public administration perspectives, this book argues that for democratization and integration to be consolidated and institutionalized, direct involvement of the people of Southern Africa is paramount. Democratization and integration are about people, the sovereigns, and not merely the abstract actors called nation states.

To have a State, four distinct conditions must be met. First, there must be a community of people, and it matters not whether they belong to the same color, faith, or ethnicity. Second, there must be a geographical space, a settlement that this community of people calls a home. Third, there must be governing authority. And finally, the government must be sovereign – sovereign in the sense that it is self-governing and independent of any domestic or international body. Palestine, Taiwan, and Western Sahara have met all the forestated conditions -- except for broad international support and recognition and membership of the United Nations. However, this has not been the case with Palestine, Taiwan, and Western Sahara. This edited volume examines some of the endogenous and exogenous factors that have contributed to the ambiguous and contested nature of these political entities and argued that the undermined nature of these entities contributes to regional instability and global insecurity. And finally, the continued denial of statehood is a violation of their collective human rights.

This two-volume set charts a cross-disciplinary discursive terrain that proffers rich insights about deceit in contemporary postcolonial Sub-Saharan African politics. In an attempt to produce a nuanced and multifaceted academic dialoguing platform, the two volumes have a particular focus on the aspects of treachery, fear of difference (oppositional politics), and discourses/semiotics of mis/self-representation. The major aim of the proposed volumes is to contribute toward the often problematised conversations about the unfolding (post)colonial Sub-Saharan world which is topical in decolonial and Pan-African studies.The volumes seek to place political thinking and postcolonial political systems under the scholarly gaze with the view to highlight and enhance the participation of African cross-disciplinary scholarship in the postcolonial political processes of the continent. Most significantly, it is through such probing of the limitations of our own disciplinary perspectives which can help us appreciate the complexity of the postcolonial Sub-Saharan African politics. The first volume uses Zimbabwe as a case study, while the second volume examines postcolonial politics in Sub-Saharan Africa more broadly.The first volume uses Zimbabwe as a case study, while the second volume examines postcolonial politics in Sub-Saharan Africa more broadly.The first volume uses Zimbabwe as a case study, while the second volume examines postcolonial politics in Sub-Saharan Africa more broadly.

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.