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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Media Constructions of Gendered Zimbabwean Identity Politics
| Panel |
51. Agency and the constitution of publics in Southern Africa
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| Paper ID | 33 |
| Author(s) |
Christiansen, Lene Bull
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Zimbabwean identity politics have historically been associated with the dissemination of anti-colonial ideologies and postcolonial social critique through literature, art and political agitation. Gender politics and gendered social visions have, likewise, ‘traditionally’ been mediated in similar ways.
This paper argues that contemporary identity politics takes a different form because of the shifting nature of media communication, be it internally in Zimbabwe or in the Zimbabwean diaspora. It will be argued that one of the current trends is an ever larger focus on persons and personality away from deep ideological debates (a trend that is in no way exclusively Zimbabwean). Of interest for a gender studies approach to Zimbabwean politics, this trend opens a window into the gendered nature of power relations in Zimbabwean politics, as gendered symbols of authority, legitimacy and integrity are often part and parcel to personalised political debates.
The grounding argument for the paper is, therefore, that there is a connection between the changing conditions of the discursive space of Zimbabwean identity politics and a grater personalisation and gendering in discourses of power.
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