Copyright by Caitlin Tappin McClune 2017 The Dissertation Committee for Caitlin Tappin McClune Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: ‘DIGITAL UNHU’ IN ZIMBABWE: CRITICAL DIGITAL STUDIES FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH Committee: Karin Gwinn Wilkins, Supervisor Joseph D. Straubhaar Ben Carrington Kathleen Tyner ‘Digital Unhu’ in Zimbabwe: Critical Digital Studies from the Global South by Caitlin Tappin McClune Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2017 Dedication For Daryl T. Carr. I love you and miss you. Acknowledgements I would like to extend my gratitude to Karin Wilkins and Kathy Fuller for their helpfulness and consideration, and for modeling generosity and kindheartedness in academia. I especially appreciate the help of Karin Wilkins who aided me through the last stages of this process with consistent, clear, and useful guidance. I would like to thank Joe Straubhaar who has been an approachable and resourceful presence throughout the years of my work. Additionally, in my first years of graduate school, I took Ben Carrington’s course on critical race theory, which sent me on a trajectory of research for the next seven years that often returned to the insights gained in his class. I'm especially grateful to Kathleen Tyner and Ben Carrington for agreeing to be on my committee very late in the game and for providing a final push across the finish line. I'm grateful to everyone that I worked with and who supported me during my travels in Zimbabwe. I am particularly grateful to the Chaerera family who gave me a room, fed me and cared for me during many months of research. I value especially my friendship with Kenny Chaerera, who spent many evenings telling me stories in Gogo’s living room. Joyline Chaerera opened her house to me and offered her hospitality and a home in Harare. I’m grateful to Madeline Chaerera, Tafadzwa Chaerera and of course Jasmine Chaerera whose strength and resourcefulness continues to inspire me. I’d like to extend special thanks to the staff at ICAPA trust; the interviews and conversation I had with Tafadzwa, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Olaf Koschke, and Yvonne were indispensable. I’m thankful for all of the help Takunda offered me in Harare. In addition to providing me with a room, he found people for me to interview, gave me much-needed insight on my v research, and showed me some beautiful places in Zimbabwe. Without his generosity, this project would not have happened. I’m eternally grateful to Kevin Hansen for taking me under his wing and introducing me to all of his artsy friends in Zimbabwe. I was overwhelmed and am still thankful for the hospitality and friendship so freely offered to me during my visits. I’m grateful to my sisters Barrie, Sydney and especially Lindsay – who listened to me rant during difficult times. I’m thankful to my grandmother Hildegard (Oma) who somehow survived - and here we all are. I’m amazed by the beauty, intelligence and patience of my friends Iantha Rimper, Hena Bajwa, Leah Mcleroy, Swapnil Rai, Adam W. George, Sigfried Haering, Patty Reyes, JC Leupp (Violent Vicky), Colin Gray, and Audrey Moon. I’m grateful to my parents Karin and Greg McClune, who have supported me throughout the years, and for my father’s last visit with me in Zimbabwe. My Dad’s history with Zimbabwe was the inspiration for this project, a wealth of stories that starts in Ireland and continues in San Francisco. Someday, we should sit down together to write another manuscript about our various global displacements, and our continued search for home. In the last year of my writing process, The Promises group that meets at 7 am was indispensable to maintaining balance and perspective. Lex gave me such kindness during dark times, and I’m grateful to Lil, Dave, Rocco, and Carlotta. I can’t thank the students from the Ph.D. support group enough, especially: Maggie, Stavana Strutz, Yuki Kimmons, Imran Khan, and especially my kind friend Robert Ellis. I want to thank, in particular, Sara Saylor for helping me through some of the more challenging times of this dissertation process. I am not sure how I would have finished without her kindness, intelligence, and persistence. vi The NCA and NAPA crew were an incredible support and happy distraction from typing and reading alone in a room. I'm grateful, in particular, to Zawahar Butt, Faiza Saleem, Rabia Khokhar, Hamza Ayub, Amna Quaiser, Ashar Khalid, Musa Yawari, Mehar Bano, Tausif Zain, Abdulla Waseem, Nizar Uddin, Cameron Quevedo, and Usman Ajmal. I'm thankful for the good people at the South Asia Institute, including Rachel Meyer, Scott Webel, Rita Soheila, and Sahar Ali. Additionally, I would like to thank my comrades in arms that I met during the first years of my Ph.D. program: Daniel Mauro, Jacob Hustedt, Daryl Carr, Daryl Harris, Vivian Shaw, and Andres Bermudez. I’m so thankful for Emma Skogstad; her brilliance and unwavering affection continues to be a source of strength and hope. I am especially thankful for my beautiful, intelligent, patient partner Michael Sherer, and our little friend Basil. vii ‘DIGITAL UNHU’ IN ZIMBABWE: CRITICAL DIGITAL STUDIES FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH Caitlin Tappin Shona McClune, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2017 Supervisor: Karin Gwinn Wilkins Abstract: My dissertation examines how creative organizations in Zimbabwe construct the role of digital media and the African philosophy unhu in their practices and creative artifacts. In this project, I introduce ‘digital unhu,’ a concept that acknowledges the rapid increase in digital connectivity in Zimbabwe. I investigate the particular ways Zimbabwean artistic communities have adopted digital technologies to political, economic and creative life in Harare under conditions of extreme precarity. This framework seeks to highlight the role of labor, specifically, what is known as ‘immaterial labor,’ in the creative products developed by Zimbabweans based in an agriculturally centered economy under increasingly digitally interconnected conditions. Ultimately, I argue that these organizations and artists are responding directly to the unstable political and economic conditions of their country by using these technologies to promote non-hierarchical organizations, emphasizing mobility, collaboration and drawing on the reserves of historical legacies of resistance and survival. The first chapter provides historical background and context for the development of digital unhu in Zimbabwean culture. Chapter two investigates the uses of digital technology, and role of unhu in the Zimbabwean organization Institute for Creative Arts for Progress in Africa (ICAPA) viii Trust, particularly on its organizational website icapatrust.org. Chapter four compares the experimental documentary Zim.doc to the website Wild Forrest Ranch, in order to point to characteristics unique to the region in uses of open source technology. Chapter five compares the uses of digital media, specifically mobile phones, in the cases of the Zimbabwean pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale, and in the dissolution of the Harare- based arts venue the Book Café. Across these different examples, I locate the characteristics of recalibrating cultural practices with new technologies, an emphasis on collaborative production, and the strategies of mobility. ix Table of Contents LIST OF FIGURES XIII Chapter One: Introduction .......................................................................................1 Constructing Unhu ..........................................................................................4 Contribution ....................................................................................................5 Chapter Two: Literature Review ...........................................................................14 Conceptualizing Unhu ..................................................................................18 Historical Overview .............................................................................18 Media frameworks, ethics and unhu ....................................................23 Conceptualizing the Digital ..........................................................................24 The Digital Divide and Access ............................................................24 Critical Digital Studies .........................................................................26 Immaterial Labor in critical digital scholarship ...................................29 Immaterial labor in the global south ....................................................33 Alternative legacies in Critical Digital Studies ....................................35 Chapter Three: Methodology .................................................................................40 Data Sources .................................................................................................41 Research Approach and Questions ...............................................................42 Self-Reflexivity ....................................................................................42 Participant and Direct Observation ......................................................44 Informants ............................................................................................46 Interviewing Process ............................................................................47 Analysis of Films and