Disrupting Patriotic Discourse: Music as a Counter Public and Dissident Archetype in Zimbabwe Post-2000

Blessing Makwambeni*, Trust Matsilele

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

    Abstract

    Zimbabwe has been entangled in a protracted political and economic crisis since the turn of the millennium. This crisis has seen the ruling ZANU-PF party’s legitimacy being increasingly questioned by various stakeholders that include opposition parties, trade unions, civic society and student unions. In response, the ruling ZANU-PF party has instituted a raft of measures that have shrunk democratic space and curtailed basic freedoms in the country. With shrinking of democratic space in the country, music and other forms of art have provided relatively ‘safer’ arenas for protesting excesses of power. Premised on Matsilele’s (2019) concept of dissidence and Nancy Fraser’s notion of the alternative public sphere (1990) our chapter examines how Thomas Mapfumo, Hosiah Chipanga, Winky D and Hopewell Chin’ono’s music that has been ‘banned’ from national radio can be viewed both as a dissident archetype and an alternative public sphere in Zimbabwe’s post-2000 period. We contend that the purposively selected music from the four musicians constitutes a dissident archetype where the ruling ZANU-PF party’s patriotic discourse is disrupted and contested in favour of neoliberal discourses of freedom and good governance that resonate with the tenets of the liberation struggle against white settler colonial rule. Our findings cohere with previous studies that have shown that music can provide a counter public sphere for subversive discourses in authoritarian regimes.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationGuerrilla Music
    Subtitle of host publicationMusicking as Resistance, Defiance, and Subversion
    EditorsLeon de Bruin, Jane Southcott
    Place of PublicationLondon
    PublisherLexington Books
    Chapter9
    Pages131-146
    Number of pages15
    ISBN (Electronic)9781666944044
    ISBN (Print)9781666944037
    Publication statusPublished (VoR) - 15 Jun 2024

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