Table Of ContentCultures of Change in Contemporary
Zimbabwe
This book investigates how culture reflects change in Zimbabwe, focusing pre-
dominantly on Mnangagwa’s 2017 coup, but also uncovering deeper roots for
how renewal and transition are conceived in the country.
Since Emmerson Mnangagwa ousted Robert Mugabe in 2017, he has been
keen to define his “Second Republic” or “New Dispensation” with a rhetoric
of change and a rejection of past political and economic cultures. This multi-
and inter- disciplinary volume looks to the (social) media, language/d iscourse,
theatre, images, political speeches and literary fiction and non- fiction to see
how they have reflected on this time of unprecedented upheaval. The book
argues that themes of self-r enewal stretch right back to the formative years of
the ZANU PF, and that despite the longevity of Mugabe’s tenure, the latest
transition can be seen as part of a complex and protracted layering of post-
colonial social, economic and political changes.
Providing an innovative investigation of how political change in Zimbabwe
is reflected on in cultural texts and products, this book will be of interest to
researchers across African history, literature, politics, culture and post- colonial
studies.
Oliver Nyambi lectures in the Department of English, University of the Free
State in South Africa and is currently a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation hosted by Susan Arndt in the Professorship of English Studies and
Anglophone Literatures at Bayreuth University, Germany.
Tendai Mangena is Associate Professor of African Literary and Cultural
Studies at Great Zimbabwe University in Zimbabwe and a Research Fellow in
the Department of English at the University of the Free State in South Africa.
Gibson Ncube lectures in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages,
Stellenbosch University and is currently a Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute
for Advanced Study in South Africa.
Routledge Contemporary Africa Series
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The Case of Kenya’s Maasai
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For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge- Contemporary- Africa/ book- series/ RCAFR
Cultures of Change in
Contemporary Zimbabwe
Socio- Political Transition from
Mugabe to Mnangagwa
Edited by
Oliver Nyambi, Tendai Mangena
and Gibson Ncube
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Oliver Nyambi, Tendai Mangena and
Gibson Ncube; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Oliver Nyambi, Tendai Mangena and Gibson Ncube to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 04026- 4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 04027- 1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 003- 19027- 1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9781003190271
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
About the editors ix
List of contributors xi
Introduction: The 2017 coup and cultures of change
in Zimbabwe 1
OLIVER NYAMBI, TENDAI MANGENA AND GIBSON NCUBE
PART I
Spectacles of change in the Second Republic 17
1 The patriotic present: The urgency of now in Zimbabwe’s
“New Dispensation” 19
CUTHBETH TAGWIREI
2 The spectacle and semiotics of the presidential scarf in
Zimbabwe’s “Second Republic” 38
OBERT BERNARD MLAMBO AND EZRA CHITANDO
3 Mugabeism otherwise? A critical reflection on toxic
leadership and Zimbabwe’s “New Dispensation” 52
SHEPHERD MPOFU
4 Theatres of struggle in post- Mugabe Zimbabwe 67
NKULULEKO SIBANDA
5 Derisive imaginaries of the death and burial of Mugabe
and the nascent aesthetics of coercive power in
“Second Republic” politics 84
IRIKIDZAYI MANASE
vi Contents
6 The ‘spectre’ of Mugabe: Land, change and discursive
politics of dispensations in Zimbabwe 101
OLIVER NYAMBI
PART II
Tropes of ambivalent “transitions” 119
7 “We must aspire to be a clean nation”: Ambivalences of
transition in “New Dispensation” metaphors of dirt 121
TENDAI MANGENA
8 Gukurahundi revisited in the “Second Republic”:
Trauma, memory and violence in Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s
House of stone 140
GIBSON NCUBE
9 Spectacles of transition: Texts and counter- texts in the
historiography of Zimbabwe in transition 156
MUCHATIVUGWA LIBERTY HOVE
10 A déjà vu of Orwellian proportions: Re- reading Animal
Farm in the context of Zimbabwean politics of change 171
THAMSANQA MOYO AND ESTHER MAVENGANO
PART III
Dis/ continuing political cultures 185
11 Narrativising dis/ continuities in ZANU PF
intra- power politics 187
TERRENCE MUSANGA
12 A nation burdened by an unappeased ngozi? A ‘folk’
cultural perspective on Zimbabwe’s stagnation 202
MICKIAS MUSIYIWA
13 In and out of court: Zimbabwe’s perennial framing
of opposition politics as ‘nuisance needing judiciary
pacification’ 217
EDMORE DUBE
Contents vii
14 Auxillia Mnangagwa’s “Amaihood” and the cultural politics
of the Zimbabwean first lady in the “New Dispensation” 232
UMALI SAIDI
Index 251
Acknowledgements
Oliver, Tendai and Gibson would like to express thanks to each other for cur-
ating this volume on the urgent subject of cultures of change in post- colonial
Zimbabwe, especially in the post- Mugabe era. We also appreciate how we have
established links with Zimbabwean scholars, within and outside the country, on
this book project.
Our greatest appreciation goes to all the contributors, for their enthusiasm
and energy. Without them, this project would not have seen the light of day.
We also want to take this opportunity to thank the many reviewers for their
immense contribution to the success of the project. Their incisive questions and
probing comments helped in shaping the focus and rigour of all the chapters
in this volume.
We want to thank Leanne Hinves, Helena Hurd and Rosie Anderson of
Routledge for their professionalism and keen interest in African Studies.
Oliver Nyambi appreciates the generous funding received as part of his
fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany from May
2018 to August 2021. He wishes to thank his host at Bayreuth University Susan
Arndt and the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies for availing a
conducive and productive space for thinking and writing. Nyambi also acknow-
ledges the support received from his department, faculty and research office at
the University of the Free State in South Africa, particularly Kudzai Ngara, Iri
Manase, Helene Strauss, Heidi Hudson, Corli Witthuhn and many others. He
also thanks colleagues as well as the team supporting him in the Department
of Higher Education’s Future Professors Programme, South Africa – Jackie du
Toit, Neil Roos, Sibusiso Moyo (not the Zimbabwean coup announcer), Zinia
Bunyula, Jonathan Jansen and Chantelle Wyley.
Gibson Ncube would like to thank the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced
Study for facilitating an overseas residence at the National Humanities Center
(USA). It is during this stay that he joined Oliver and Tendai in crafting the idea
of this volume.
Tendai Mangena acknowledges funding from Fulbright which enabled her
to work on this project as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California,
Riverside, USA.
About the editors
Oliver Nyambi (PhD, Stellenbosch) teaches English and Cultural Studies in
the Department of English, University of the Free State, South Africa. He
is currently an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow hosted by Susan
Arndt in the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies at Bayreuth
University, Germany. A former fellow of the American Council of Learned
Societies (ACLS) and the Duke Africa Initiative at Duke University, USA, his
research mainly focuses on crisis/h umanitarian literatures, the Zimbabwean
crisis and the cultural politics of marginalities. His recent book is Life-
Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe: Versions and Subversions of Crisis (2019,
Routledge). He is an editor with Cogent Arts & Humanities – the open
access journal published by Routledge. He is a rated researcher with the
South African National Research Foundation (NRF).
Tendai Mangena (PhD, Leiden) is Associate Professor in African Literary and
Cultural studies at Great Zimbabwe University and Research Fellow in the
Department of English at the University of the Free State, South Africa.
She was a Fulbright Research Scholar in the Department of Comparative
Literature and Languages at the University of California, Riverside,
USA, in 2020 and an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow in
the Department of Postcolonial Literary and Cultural studies at Bremen
University, in Germany from 2016 to 2018. Her research interests are in
the areas of gender, politics, power and justice in African literature and
onomastics.
Gibson Ncube (PhD, Stellenbosch) teaches in the Department of Modern
Foreign Languages at Stellenbosch University. He is currently an Iso Lomso
Research Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (South
Africa). He is a former African Humanities Programme Fellow (American
Council for Learned Societies). His research interests are in comparative
literature, gender and queer studies and cultural studies. He sits on the edi-
torial boards of the Journal of Literary Studies, Nomina Africana as well as the
“Governing Intimacies in the Global South” Book Series published by
