Decolonisation of Materialities or Mater

Symbolisms, Languages, Ecocriticism and (Non)Representationalism in 21st Century Africa

Artwell Nhemachena, Jairos Kangira, Artwell Nhemachena, Jairos Kangira

• Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9789956763948
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9789956764570
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Contemporary scholarly discourses about decolonising materialities are taking two noticeable trajectories, the first trajectory privileges establishing connections, relationships and associations between human beings and nature. The second trajectory privileges restoration, restitution, reparations for colonial dispossessions, lootings and disinheritance. While the first trajectory presupposes that colonialism was merely about separation, alienation, and disconnections between human beings and nature, the second trajectory stresses the colonialists dispossession, disinheritance and privations of Africans. Drawing on contemporary discourses about materialities in relation to semiotics, (non-)representationalism, rhetoric, ecocriticism, territorialisation, deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation, translation, animism, science and technology studies, this book teases out the intellectually rutted terrain of African materialities. It argues that in a world of increasing impoverishment, the significance of materialities cannot be overemphasised: more so for the continent of Africa where impoverishment materialises in the midst of resource opulence. The book is a pacesetter in no holds barred interrogation of African materialities.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• About the Contributors
• Contents
• Foreword
• Chapter One - Materialities and the Resilient Global Frontierisation of Africa: An Introduction
• Chapter Two - Phantasia and the Rhetoric of Inaugural Speeches: Cases of Samora Machel (1975), Robert Mugabe (1980), Sam Nujoma (1990) and Nelson Mandela (1994)
• Chapter Three - Materialities and Human Rights in Contemporary African Higher Education: the Case of the “Fees Must Fall Movements” in Southern African Universities
• Chapter Four - Conjugating Materialities and Symbols in Contemporary Africa?The Case of the Statue of King Nghunghunyani, South Africa
• Chapter Five - Materialities and Symbols of Zimbabwe’s Civil Religion
• Chapter Six - Un-naming the Nameables: An Ecocritical Perspective of Operation Murambatsvina in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names
• Chapter Seven - Gendered Experiences: Land Grabs and the De-Feminization of Africa’s Agrarian Futures
• Chapter Eight - Reconfiguring the African Jindwi Traditional Drums in a Post- colonial Mutare Museum Setting, Zimbabwe
• Chapter Nine - A Contextual Analysis of Small-Scale Mining: Interrogating the Question of Materialities in Namibia
• Chapter Ten - A Contrastive (Re)mapping of Blacks, Land and Nature in Colonial Rhodesian and Contemporary Postcolonial Zimbabwean Fiction
• Chapter Eleven - “Decolonising” and Democratising Pedagogical Translation in Foreign Language Teaching: The Role of Mediation as Strategy
• Chapter Twelve - The Literary Constructions of the Metaphysical in the African Milieu
• Back cover