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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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NOT EXACTLY LIKE THE PHOENIX - BUT RISING ALL THE SAME: RECOVERY AND RESISTANCE AMONG DISPLACED YOUTH IN POST-MURAMBATSVINA HARARE
| Panel |
37. Political Economies of Displacement in Southern Africa
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| Paper ID | 167 |
| Author(s) |
Kamete, Amin Y.
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| Paper |
View paper (PDF)
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| Abstract | The paper retraces the attempt of displaced youth to return to the contested spaces of Harare in the wake of Zimbabwe’s Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order. The paper peers into some evolving strategies invented and modified by the embattled youth. It assesses how these strategies have fared in the face of determined efforts by the repressive local and national state machinery to keep the “filth” at bay. While noting the relative successes of non-combative strategies, the paper argues that it is the transformation of the youth’s modes of operation that has helped keep them going as the authorities still have to come up with a strategy that can match the evasive resistance and recovery of the youth. The paper also questions some postulations that the youth are returning only because the authorities allow them to operate, arguing that the tolerance of the authorities to the rapidly transforming underground economy is in part a result of official paralysis and the inability to design effectively counter-responses capable of keeping up with the mutation in the youth’s modus operandi. |
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