Performative citizenship and the politics of scale: Local,national and global citizenships in Zimbabwe

This paper explores the interaction between different scales of governance and performative citizenship, understood as acts by citizens that claim new political rights and reshape the political arena. Performance allows citizens to creatively transform the meanings and functions of citizenship during struggles over rights. The paper focuses on a series of examples in Zimbabwe, which highlight the entanglement of different scales of citizenship and the ways that the acts of citizenship both challenge and sustain these relationships. This is examined through a framework that combines theories of performative citizenship with concepts from human geography that examine scales of governance. The argument draws out the implications of these dynamics in relation to conflicts over customary citizenship in rural Zimbabwe, the issue of dual citizenship among white Zimbabweans and the exercise of citizenship rights by non-Zimbabweans. It highlights both the ways in which citizens have harnessed the creative potential of acts of citizenship which address multiple scales, and the constraints that scalar hierarchies put on citizen action. The examples demonstrate that new forms of political rights can be produced across scales, but that opportunities for creative acts of citizenship are unevenly distributed due to these scalar hierarchies, which are produced by postcolonial legacies.     

The Rural Labour Market in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT Wage labour in Zimbabwe is most often associated with large commercial farms. The use of wage labour within ‘peasant’ agriculture has been rarely investigated and remains largely undocumented. In 1986/7, the author conducted research in Zimbabwe which was explicitly concerned with issues of rural economic differentiation and the wage labour supplied and hired by ‘peasant’ households. The data suggest that a dynamic labour market exists in rural Zimbabwe. Further, it was found that in addition to the many part-time rural wage workers, there is a group of people who depend upon wages for all or the bulk of their income. These people, who have been largely ignored by policymakers, cannot be defined as farmers at all.     

当曙光照亮非洲大地——大津巴布韦遗址探奇

空气中划过白雾一次伟大的考古莅临彩霞在燃烧探险家的猜测狂野非洲的惊艳世界遗存的魅力耳目一新的创意,清晨出动夜色悄悄地爬了上来,在天边弥漫而去,彩霞放射出燃烧一般的火焰,金红闪耀的太阳要落到遥远的地平线上去了,而我乘坐的车子也正在加足马力,在黑暗彻底压下来之前,向目的地——大津巴布韦靠近。     

The United States and the Final Years of White Rule in Zimbabwe

Books reviewed in this article:
Gerald Horne, From the Barrel of a Gem: The United States and the War against Zimbabwe 1965–1980
Andrew DeRoche, Black, White, and Chrome: The United States and Zimbabwe, 1953–1998     

The chronology of the Valley Enclosures: implications for the interpretation of Great Zimbabwe

The recent structuralist model of the social organization of space at Great Zimbabwe, proposed by Huffman, is critically examined in the light of new chronological data. Architectural histories of the Western and Central Valley Enclosures (Posselt and Phillips Ruins respectively) are used to show the complex changes that occur through time in the social meaning of spatial organization. It is argued that these changes are not adequately accounted for in Huffman's model. The Western Valley Enclosure, dated on the basis of a large piece of blue-on-white Chinese porcelain of the Honghzi period (Ming Dynasty, AD 1488–1505) recovered from a sealed context, was still occupied when most other areas of Great Zimbabwe were abandoned. Huffman's incorporation of these enclosures into a synchronic structuralist interpretation of the site is therefore probably invalid. These new data highlight the importance of chronological control in the development of structural and symbolic interpretations of Great Zimbabwe.

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Résumé Le modèle structuraliste de l'organisation sociale de l'espace à la Grande Zimbabwe proposé récemment par Huffman est examiné de façon critique, en fonction de données chronologiques récentes. Les histories architecturales des enclos des vallées Ouest et du Centre (Posselt et Phillips Ruins) sont utilisées afin de démontrer les changements complexes subit au cours du temps par la dimension sociale de l'organisation de l'espace. Les auteurs proposent que ces changements ne sont pas reflétés de manière convaincante par le modèle de Huffman. L'enclos de la vallée de l'Ouest est daté par la présence d'un fragment de porcelaine chinoise large, bleu sur blanc, appartenant à la période Houghzi (Dinastie de Ming 1488–1505 AD), trouvé dans un contexte scéllé; ceci prouve que le site était encore occupé alors que la plupart des autres quartiers de la Grande Zimbabwe étaient déjá abandonnés. L'incorporation par Huffman de ces enclos dans l'interprétation synchronique structuraliste du site n'est donc probablement pas correcte. Ces données nouvelles mettent en lumière l'importance du control chronologique pour le développement d'interpretations symboliques et structuralistes de la Grande Zimbabwe.

     

Fluid flow in shear zones: insights from the geometry and evolution of ore bodies at Renco gold mine,Zimbabwe

The geometry of mineral deposits can give insights into fluid flow in shear zones. Lode gold ore bodies at Renco Mine, in the Limpopo Belt, Zimbabwe, occur as siliceous breccias and mylonites within amphibolite facies shear zones that dip either gently or steeply. The two sets of ore bodies formed synchronously from hydrothermal fluids. The ore bodies are oblate, but have well‐defined long axes. Larger ore bodies are more oblate. High‐grade gold ore shoots have long axes that plunge down dip; this direction is perpendicular to the long axes of the low‐grade ore bodies. The centres of the high‐grade ore bodies align within the low‐grade ore bodies along strike in both gently and steeply dipping groups. The range of sizes and shapes of the ore bodies are interpreted as a growth sequence. Geometrical models are proposed for the gently and steeply dipping ore bodies, in which individual ore bodies grow with long axes plunging down dip, and merge to form larger, more oblate ore bodies. The models show that when three or more ore bodies coalesce, the long axis of the merged ore body is perpendicular to the component ore bodies, and that ore bodies in the deposit may have a range of shapes due to both growth of individual ore bodies, and their coalescence. The long axes of the high‐grade ore bodies are parallel to the shear directions of both the gently and steeply dipping dip slip shear zones, which were the directions of greatest permeability and fluid flow. The larger, lower grade bodies, which may have formed by coalescence, are elongate perpendicular to these directions.     

The limits of engagement: British foreign policy and the crisis in Zimbabwe

This article examines how the British government has responded to Zimbabwe’s ongoing crisis. This case raises several wider issues for British foreign policy, most notably the question of how much leverage London can exercise on the international scene in general, and over relatively small and weak states like Zimbabwe in particular. Zimbabwe’s crisis also raises profound questions about the appropriate balance between bilateral and multilateral policies, and between engaging in public criticism and conducting so–called ‘quiet diplomacy’. While bilateralism clearly has not worked, multilateralism has revealed its own frustrations, especially given the reluctance of many African elites within a number of organizations to criticize President Mugabe’s policies. This reluctance threatens to unravel the British Labour government’s stated objectives in Africa while at the same time raising important doubts over the credibility of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and whether an ‘Africa moment’ can be discerned in the manner articulated by prime minister Tony Blair.     

The chimera of national identity

ABSTRACT. In both popular discourse and many academic works, the existence of national identity is largely taken as given. Although researchers disagree on whether national identities are modern or perennial, and how best to gauge the intensity of identification with a particular nation, there is near unanimity on the view that national identities are real and perceptible entities. In contrast to this view I argue not only that there was no national identity before modernity but also that there is little empirical evidence for the existence of national identities in the modern age either. While it is obvious that many individuals show great affinity for their nations and often express sincere devotion to the ‘national cause’, none of these are reliable indicators of the existence of a durable, continuous, stable and monolithic entity called ‘national identity’. To fully understand the character of popular mobilisation in modernity it is paramount to refocus our attention from the slippery and non‐analytical idiom of ‘identity’ towards well‐established sociological concepts such as ‘ideology’ and ‘solidarity’. In particular, the central object of this research becomes the processes through which large‐scale social organisations successfully transform earnest micro‐solidarity into an all‐encompassing nationalist ideology.     

举世瞩目的国宝展

吸引世界的目光 翻开中国美术史,你会发现古往今来涌现出许多优秀的书画艺术家并创作了大量的优秀书画作品,在漫长的历史长河中,如颗颗璀璨明珠映照出中国五千年的灿烂明。这些作品不但体现出我国古代美术创作的高超技艺,同时深刻地反映了当时社会的发展和历史风貌,无论从艺术角度或是从历史角度来说,其价值都是无法估量的。