African Cultures, Memory and Space

Yaya Fonye Odette

Description

African Cultures, Memory and Space is an impeccable volume that powerfully grapples with a gamut of cultural heritage issues, challenges and problems from a vista of inter- and multi-disciplinary approach. The book, which is designed as a foundational text to the study of culture in ever-changing environments, makes an important argument that the dynamism of culture in highly globalised societies such as that of Zimbabwe can be studied from any perspective, but most importantly through careful examination of cultural elements such as memory, oral history and space, among others. While the book makes special reference to Zimbabwe, it profoundly and audaciously dissect and cut across different geographical and cultural spaces through its penetrating interrogation and scrutiny of different issues commonplace in many African contexts and even beyond. The book, written by scholars from different backgrounds and orientations, should appeal to scholars, researchers and students from various disciplines which include but not limited to Cultural Heritage Studies, Policy Studies, Social-Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, Development Studies and African Studies.

Sujets

• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Anthropology
• Social
• Culture

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 17 juillet 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789956792153
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

African Cultures, Memory and Space: Living the Past Presence in Zimbabwean Heritage

Edited by Munyaradzi Mawere & Tapuwa R. Mubaya

Langaa Research & Publishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Publisher: LangaaRPCIG Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon [e-mail] www.langaa-rpcig.net Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookcollective.com

ISBN: 9956-792-97-7 ©Munyaradzi Mawere & Tapuwa R. Mubaya 2014

DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.

List of Contributors Munyaradzi Mawere is Associate Professor at Universidade Pedagogica-Gaza, Mozambique. Before joining this University, Mawere was lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe. He has written and published more than fifteen books and over fifty papers in scholarly journals. Tapuwa Raymond Mubayaa Lecturer at Great Zimbabwe is University, Faculty of Culture and Heritage. Before joining Great Zimbabwe University, Mr. Mubaya worked for National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe for eight years as the Senior Curator of Archaeology and Head of the Great Zimbabwe Conservation Centre. Jacob Maparais a Professor of Indigenous Knowledge and African Languages and Literature. He is currently with the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Living Heritage at Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe. Dr. Mapara’s other interests are in onomastics, the Shona novel and short story. Farai M. Chabata is Senior Curator of Ethnography with the National Museum and Monuments of Zimbabwe. He obtained his MA in African History with the University of Zimbabwe. His research interests include heritage management, intangible cultural heritage and collections management. Henry Chiwaurais currently a PhD Candidate in Heritage with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He obtained his MA in Heritage Studies from the University of Zimbabwe. He is working as Lecturer in Archaeology, Museums and Heritage Studies, Great Zimbabwe University, Zimbabwe. His research interests includes but not limited to, heritage management, museology and public archaeology.

Thomas Panganayi Thondhlana is currently the Director of the School of Culture and Heritage Studies at the Great Zimbabwe University. He holds a PhD in Archaeology from the University College of London. Jane Sigaukeis incumbent Teaching Assistant in the Department of Archaeology, Heritage and Museum Studies at Great Zimbabwe University. Her research interests are in the area of sustainable heritage management, traditional methods of managing heritage and museology. She obtained her BA Honours in Archaeology, Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies from Midlands State University. Shadreck Dzingayi: Assistant Lecturer at Great Zimbabwe University, Faculty of Culture and Heritage. Lesley Hatipone Machiridzacurrently a PhD candidate is registered with the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Machiridza has worked for the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) and the Midlands State University before joining the Faculty of Culture and Heritage Studies at the Great Zimbabwe University. His interest in the Rozvi stretches as far back as 2004 when he started interrogating their archaeological past. Over the years, that research interest has blossomed as evidenced by his sustained intriguing academic contributions to the subject. Francis Muchemwais a Lecturer at Great Zimbabwe University, Faculty of Culture and Heritage Studies. He worked for National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe based at the Great Zimbabwe World Heritage site for thirteen years as a cultural heritage interpreter/ presenter to the visiting tourists before joining Great Zimbabwe University. Genius Tevera is an Assistant Lecturer at Great Zimbabwe University, Department of Heritage Studies, Faculty of Culture and Heritage Studies, Zimbabwe.

Table of Contents Whither African cultures? An Introduction........................................ vii Chapter 1 Ethnicity in Zimbabwe: The peopling of the modern nation- state............................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 2 Western hegemony and conquest of Africa: Imperial hypocrisy and the invasion of African cultures............................................................ 25 Chapter 3 Legislation and management of heritage landscapes in Zimbabwe................................................................................................. 41 Chapter 4 Memory, space and contestations in living traditions: The case of Chitungwiza chaChaminuka Shrine in Zimbabwe............................. 65 Chapter 5 The Shona folktale: An enduring legacy.............................................. 81 Chapter 6 Connoisseurs of traditional medicine: The use and efficacy of traditional medicine in pregnant women’s health care...................... 111 Chapter 7 Traditional dance as intangible heritage: In defence of the perpetuation of traditional dance and music in Zimbabwe……..... 135 Chapter 8 Identities, memoirs and narratives: The dialectics of Rozvi ethnicity and power in Zimbabwe......................................................................... 161 v

Chapter 9 Heritage typologies and organisation in Zimbabwe: Questions, insights and policy implications.............................................................179 Chapter 10 Theories of culture: Juxtaposing cultural relativism, ethnocentrism and determinism in contemporary Zimbabwe.................................................................................................211 Chapter 11 Marriage in a globalised world: The effects of globalisation on traditional marriage systems in Zimbabwe.......................................... 227

vi

Whither African cultures? An introduction Introduction While issues related to culture are inexorably complex to address in their entirety in one volume, they are worthy of concentrated interrogation particularly in culturally diverse and historically fragile milieus like those of Zimbabwe; contexts where fieldwork observations and case studies examined in this book emerge. In these culturally diverse contexts, the inscrutable amalgam of a complex history of skewed colonial education with its social vestiges, vices and anomalies and where most of the vices and anomalies are persistent even today, a rigorous academic excursion of emerging vibrant forces such as globalisation are befitting and more relevant now than ever. Globalisation, for instance, offers the latest episode in the development of approaches to culture studies, connecting cultures with all possible geographical landscapes. Yet, some cultures, for example, in Africa are essentially enduring given the spiteful experiences they have gone through since the colonial period to the present as a result of large scale processes such as westernisation. Globalisation comes to the fore as an actor that potentially offers new approach(es) towards the recognition that issues of culture transcend national and even regional boundaries that call for mutual understanding, respect and common approach to appreciate different societies. Unfortunately for Africa and other so-called ‘subaltern’ world societies, more often than not, it is the latter actor [globalisation] that imperial countries in the West and Americas capitalise on to impose their ‘nefarious’ values – culture-wise or otherwise – on other societies in the name of globalisation. This introductory chapter reflects on the material and analyses presented in the contributions of this diverse, impeccable collection and explore what the future may have in store for the previously disadvantaged and marginalised world societies as those of Africa and in particular Zimbabwe. vii

Objectives of the book The more than 10 authors contributed to this book are drawn from across different disciplines and institutions. They all speak in their own independent voices, and with interesting glimpses of their respective fieldwork and case studies, on topical themes ranging from folklore, traditional dances, traditional medicines, colonialism, globalisation, ethnicity and identity in relation to the contemporary cultures of Zimbabwe. This is done without looking at the referred themes from a disciplinary knowledge perspective as the authors believe that although “disciplinary knowledge provides an important foundation for understanding different aspects of live reality […] on their own, disciplines are limited in their ability to grasp the full complexity of what was, is and might bethe case”Moser 2013: 37; emphasis original). The thrust of the book, thus, is inter-, trans-, and multi-disciplinary approach grounded in a multifaceted engagement to the study of culture. This thrust has been embraced following the contributors’ realisation that viewing a single issue from different and multidisciplinary vantage point has the merit that it provides deep, rich and nuanced understanding of complex and dynamic issues that may in turn help to inform and influence policy formulation, especially in contexts where there are people from different cultural backgrounds. As such, this book has as one of its objectives, to influence research around large-scale processes such as globalisation as well as policy-making on the same [culture] at national, regional and international levels. This implies that at another level, the present book aims to mobilise the wider academic community (from all disciplines concerned with culture and society) to engage more effectively and seriously in their study of culture so as to develop a more integrated and transformative research around present day topical issues such as globalisation and westernisation among others, that have impacted on culture in varying degrees. Integrated and transformative research guarantees openness to other ways of viewing and studying world processes. It also ensures that new and viii

different kinds of questions that emerge from different disciplines and people from different societies across the world will be appreciated in the joint search for that which is good for the human society – the common good and global peace – now and for the future generations. Reflections on the book chapters As already been pointed out in the section above, this chapter is a synthesis of all the contributions that constitute this book. It is an exploration of the main themes that run from the first to the eleventh chapter of this cherished collection. In chapter 1, Thomas Thondhlana grapples with the critical but often highly controversial issue of diversity and ethnicity in Zimbabwe. While Thondhlana acknowledges that ethnicity, which in Zimbabwe is the springboard of identity, is normally linked to blood ties it is the people’s common history that also binds and sometimes define them as a people. Thondhlana, thus, argues: “people from different backgrounds can end up identifying themselves with particular ethnic groups as a result of historical factors irrespective of the lack of blood ties. Ethnic identities are socially created and constructed; they are sometimes very fluidandsituational”. Yet, while ethnicity is important in tagging identities, Thondhlana observes that they are also detrimental to socio-economic and political development in the historically and ethnically diverse modern states such as that of Zimbabwe. In view of this observation, Thondhlana concludes that the issue of ethnicity should not be taken seriously when it comes to nation building as it promotes “lobby groups and ethnic movements”. Chapter 2 by Munyaradzi Mawere takes up the issue of European colonialism in Africa and how it has impacted on the African people’s lives and worldviews even today. Mawere, thus, argues: Colonialism has always had perennial bearing on the African people’s lives and worldviews. This is premised on ix