The Nation Thing? ‘Enjoyment and Well-being’ in the Production of Cultural Spaces in Zimbabwean Literature By Edwin Mhandu A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Studies University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg Supervisor: Professor Robert Muponde Declaration I, the undersigned, hereby declare that the material presented for this degree is my own original work. I have duly acknowledged where I have quoted or paraphrased statements, sentences and ideas from any published or unpublished work which is not mine. Signed: Date: 28 February 2018 i Dedication I dedicate this work to my wife Moline (Wakandinakira uye ndokuda! Wakakosha) and children: Harmony Tinotenda, Edwin Mutungamiri and Edwina Ndanatsa; my parents, T. G. Mhandu (Nzou!) and the now deceased M. N. Mhandu; my in-laws, J. Muparuri and F. Muparuri. ii Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to my Supervisor and mentor, Professor Robert Muponde, who had to examine and help shape innumerable drafts in the course of this work. Thank you, Professor. I am grateful for your patience and expertise, your assistance with my applications for funding, and your critical guidance on the writing of publishable journal articles. I wish to thank Professor Merle Williams, the Postgraduate Coordinator in the School of Languages, Literature and Media Studies, for financial support and academic counselling. Thank you, Professor Libby Meintjes, the Head of School of Languages, Literature and Media Studies at the University of Witwatersrand, for the financial and academic support that enabled me to be immersed in my studies without any problems. I am deeply grateful to Professor Eric Worby, Faculty of Humanities, for the PhD Completion grant, and the Director of the Humanities Graduate Centre, for hosting the graduate seminar series that were academically rewarding. I thank the Department of Science and Technology, Republic of South Africa, for the National Research Foundation – DST Innovation scholarship for 2015, and Wits University for the Postgraduate Merit Award, 2014 to 2016. The Head of the English Department, Professor Victor Houliston; Teaching staff (thank you Professor Gerald Gaylard, Dr Michelle Adler, Dr Barbara Boswell, Professor Christopher Thurman, Dr. Colette Gordon, Dr. Simon Van Schalkwyk, Mr Timothy Trengove Jones, and Dr. Sofia Kostelac) and fellow students such as Lara, Karl Van Wyk, Josiah Nyanda, Natalie Paoli, Aaron Mupondi, Tafirenyika Madziyauswa among others in the Department of English at the University of the Witwatersrand who made sure the department became my second home for the period of study February 2013 to March 2017. I also thank Ms Moipone Ndala, the Departmental Secretary – you are great. Thanks to Dr Sonia Fanucchi, the Coordinator of English Seminar Series, for timely notifications and efficiency. The seminars proved to be a rich ground where I benefitted immensely from world renowned scholars and experts coming from all over the world. I acknowledge administrative support from the then Chairperson of the English Department, University of Zimbabwe, Mr Aaron iii Mupondi, staff and students in the same department, including Portia Chikosi, the Departmental Secretary. I also thank the following academics for responding, teasing and testing some of my ideas at the proposal presentation stage: Professor Michael Titlestad, Professor Gerald Gaylard, Professor Veronique Tadjo, Professor. Merle Williams, Dr Dina Ligaga, Dr. Josiah Nyanda, Dr. Michelle Adler, Dr. Thabisani Ndlovu, Dr. Sofia Kostelac, Dr Sonia Fanucchi, among others. I am also grateful to Bev Goldman and Dr. Thabisani Ndlovu who had to read the whole thesis to weed out some grammatical and spelling errors. Dr Danai Mupotsa read my Chapter four which I presented in seminar form, and Professor Merle Williams read and responded in writing. The comments helped in shaping some of my ideas. I also appreciate the camaraderie of Dr. Kelvin Chikonzo and Dr. Samuel Ravengai with whom I debated informally, and their input in shaping my ideas was invaluable. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Dhammamegha Annie-Leatt and the scholars at WISER for organising the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism (JWTC) in 2015. The workshop helped me broaden my views on enjoyment and happiness. I also acknowledge the funding, which I received from the School of Language, Literature and Media Studies, University of the Witwatersrand. iv Abstract My thesis develops a frame of understanding of the aesthetic, cultural well-being and enjoyment spaces in Zimbabwean literature through a close reading of selected texts (both fiction and autobiographical narratives). I argue that Zimbabwean literature demonstrates the expanse of ‘enjoyment’ beyond the material. Findings from my analysis establish the position that people create and flourish in enjoyable identity conferring spaces of their own choice, and generate an intercultural mosaic in the process. Unlike the standard criticism of Zimbabwean literature which focuses on wars, trauma, memory, interminable gender struggles, binaries of the city and country, dispossessions and repossessions, the “Zimbabwean crisis” and the diaspora, I explore enjoyment and well-being. I establish that the intercultural nature of “enjoyment and well-being” spaces designates a fractured cosmopolitanism in which classificatory variables like gender, race and ethnicity are problematised. I interrogate enjoyment and well-being that is predicated on the pain and suffering of a scripted and choked “Other”, whichever name that individual may be called: stranger, alien, refugee, migrant and settler among some “Othering” concepts. The subject that Zimbabwean literature establishes has the capacity to enjoy in multifarious ways that which fosters intersubjectivity. People from diverse backgrounds, sexes, and ethnicities find joy, happiness and pleasure in various spaces of interaction or “contact zones” which are identity conferring. The research foregrounds cultural sites in four parts: the land, the body, city spaces and diaspora spaces. Part one considers land as the locus of analysis in the explication of Zimbabwean subjectivities, since land is often deployed as the “discursive threshold” after the Post-2000 land invasions/reforms. I establish the paucity and inadequacy of a conceptualisation of land that derives identities from binaries that designate the Self and Other. I proceed to explore rhythms and textures in nature to demonstrate the richness and inter-subjectivity in the way land, animals, the cosmos and human life are intertwined. Part two demonstrates that the individual body is at the centre of generating its own data and negotiating meanings as physical sensations are expanded to inter-human sensation, contrary to the nation-state’s concept of fashioning subjects. v Part three considers city spaces as rendering the atmosphere and environment for subject enjoyment, well-being and authenticity. Beyond and above the sites that are bound by territorial borders, I argue that Zimbabwean subjects enjoy transcendental and diaspora spaces. Part four explores transcendental spaces of enjoyment and well-being at the level of both the individual human mind and nation-spaces. The rise of cellphones, the Ipad, computers and the semiotics of the big and small screens introduce a mind that is able to transcend the exigencies of place through memorialisation, imagi(ni)ng, pictures, ritual and religion. Texts explored in part four demonstrate that people are able to negotiate spaces and places through remediation and travel, both physically and metaphorically, thus breaching the territorial borders of the nation-state. The study suggests the creation and sustenance of climates for various orders of joy, enjoyment and pleasure by nation-states which should desist from dictating the way people enjoy for them to maintain legitimacy. The research underscores the importance of enjoyment and well-being in the configuration of nation-spaces at any given time. This research foregrounds an African response to the global scholarship on the constitution of nation-spaces through the tropes of enjoyment and well-being. Keywords: Zimbabwe, enjoyment, well-being, cultural spaces, nation-state, happiness, subject, eudemonism, eirenéism, transcendental. vi Table of Contents Declaration ..................................................................................................................................................... i Dedication ..................................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... iii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ v Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................................ vii Chapter One: Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Aim of the Study ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Rationale ......................................................................................................................................................