Issue 2 (JSHSS Vol. 2)

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http://hdl.handle.net/11070/1359

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Browsing Issue 2 (JSHSS Vol. 2) by Author "Chabata, Emmanuel"

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    A gendered analysis of the ‘Decade of Crisis’ in Virginia Phiri’s Highway queen
    (University of Namibia, 2013) Muwati, Itai; Gambahaya, Zifikile; Chabata, Emmanuel
    The article is an exegesis of the discursive apotheosis of motherhood/ mothering in Highway Queen (2011). It particularly analyses the narrative’s manipulation of motherhood as a vital and strategic life-support resource in a context that, in some scholarly circles, has come to be known as the ‘decade of crisis’ in Zimbabwe. That the mother character is identified with both the search for and the application of, in a pragmatic manner, life-giving values, fi rmly locates her as the “center of life, the magnet that holds the social cosmos intact and alive” (Sofola as cited in Hudson-Weems, 1993, p. xviii). This construction of motherhood resonates with the place, status and role of the African mother in antiquity where she has always been an important part of the equation of life. Remarkably, Highway Queen accomplishes an ingenious role-reversal within Zimbabwe’s literary landscape where male characters have been depicted as exclusive avatars of agency in more tempestuous and tranquil situations alike, while women are forced to contend with the victim tag in either context. Highway Queen propagates a topsy-turvy world in which the woman is invested with more agency in a situation that threatens both genders and would normally be for the man to conquer.
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    A socio-cultural and linguistic analysis of postcolonial christian naming practices in Zimbabwe
    (University of Namibia, 2013) Mashiri, Pedzisai; Chabata, Emmanuel; Chitando, Ezra
    The study of African personal names has interested a number of researchers from diverse fields. Focus on Christian beliefs in the postcolonial period and on the linguistic forms and the meanings communicated through these forms provides revealing insights to the relationship between language use and its sociocultural context, itself the concern of anthroponomastics. Zimbabwe’s political independence in 1980 represented a more robust Christian tradition and provided a framework for linguistic freedom that resulted in dynamic and creative ways of expressing Christian faith. Naming assumed exciting dimensions. The present study reveals the revitalisation of the traditional culture where naming is a specific, conscious and deliberate linguistic act intimately linked with values, traditions, hopes, fears and events in people’s lives. The data discussed in this article shows how black Zimbabwean parents communicate messages reflecting these dispositions through names that they create for their children in insightful, inventive and systematic ways in the postcolonial period.