Originating from a Greek goddess called Demokratia, democracy constitutes a coup de 'tat against African spirituality and against Afrocentric politics. Subjected not only to the Greek goddess Demokratia but also to algocracy, corporatocracy, and technocracy, African politics has long ceased to be Afrocentric in the sense of serving the material interests of African people. Drawing on the Shona (a people of Zimbabwe) term vanhu (humans) to coin the word vanhucracy, and drawing on intensive literature review, this paper argues that Western democracy is in fact colonial in the sense of it bypassing African material interests and in its privileging of liberal rights. In this regard, the paper also frames the argument in terms of what it calls the coloniality of democracy which speaks to how Demokratia disrupts Afrocentric politics.
Abstract Arguing that chameleons know best how to appear to be stationary even as they are motionary towards targeted flies, at which they suddenly dart their swift tongues once within range, this paper contends that the emergent postbinary world order is a chameleons' world; it is a world where Africans – deemed, in Eurocentric animistic discourses, to be indistinct from flies – will be increasingly cannibalised. Of course, chameleons use sleights of tongue when they feast on flies but imperialists also use sleights of hand when they want to feast on Africans. Drawing on the Shona (a people of Zimbabwe) proverbial warning rinonyenga rinohwarara rinosumudza musoro rawana (he who courts may trick the subject of courtship, to feel safe and loved, only to become violent once he has achieved his goal), this paper argues that neoimperialism is using sleights of hand to recolonise Africans in the twenty-first century. Postulating a theory of rinonyenga rinohwarara rinosumudza musoro rawana for international relations, society and politics, this paper argues for the application of Ubuntu theory in international relations but with a caveat that imperial chameleon politics and relations premised on trickery are not part of the canons of Ubuntu.
Africans need to be careful with discourses on coloniality that avoid dealing with central aberrations of colonialism. Focusing on coloniality of power, coloniality of being, coloniality of knowledge and coloniality of gender, contemporary discourses on coloniality sidestepped a central aspect of colonialism. Motivated not by quests to merely exercise power, as is assumed in coloniality of power; and motivated not merely by quests to dominate Africans using knowledge, as is assumed in coloniality of knowledge; and motivated not ultimately by the quest for gender domination, as is assumed in the coloniality of gender, colonialists dispossessed colonized people. Reviewing literature and using the Shona (a people of Zimbabwe) proverbs chisi chako masimba mashoma/kunzi pakata sandi kunzi ridza (one should not exercise power over what one does not own/possession is not synonymous with ownership), this paper postulates the notion of coloniality of dispossession. The paper concludes that power is merely a tool to dispossess colonized people, and so decolonial scholarship must focus not only on tools used to colonize other people but on the ultimate goals of using tools, such as power.
Colonially depicted as a region distinctive for fables and fabrications, Africa has ever since not been allowed to reclaim anything original. Dispossessed of their original wealth, Africans have been forced to live in fabled and fabricated houses, eating fabled, and fabricated food—closer to animals. Similarly, dispossessed of their original human identities, Africans have been forced to adopt fabricated identities. With the 21st century not promising any return to original African human identities, Africans are set to be further nanotechnologically (using tiny nanoparticles) fabricated into cyborgs that speak to ongoing posthumanist and transhumanist experiments with emergent disruptive technologies. Inhabiting not only fabricated houses but also increasingly inhabiting nanotechnologically fabled and fabricated bodies, Africans should learn to, in terms of the Shona (a people of Zimbabwe) proverb, hakuna mhou inokumira mhuru isiri yayo (no cow lows for a calf that is not its own), repossess original mastery over their own lives.
Includes bibliographical references. ; This dissertation explored how villagers in a district of Manicaland province of Zimbabwe deeply affected by violence and want survived the violence that has characterised Zimbabwe's most recent politics (from the year 2000). Marked by invasions of white owned farms, by interparty violence, interpersonal violence as well as witchcraft related violence, the period posed immense challenges to life and limb. Yet institutions of welfare, security and law enforcement were not equal to the task of ensuring survival necessitating questions about the sufficiency of "modern" institutions of law enforcement, media, politics, economy and health in guaranteeing survival in moments of want. How villagers survived the contexts of immense want, acute shortages of cash, basic commodities, formal unemployment levels of over ninety percent, hyperinflation (which in 2008 reached over 231 million percent) and direct physical violence is cause for wonder for scholarship of everyday life. Based on ethnographic data gathered over a period of fifteen months, the dissertation interrogates how villagers survived these challenges. Unlike much scholarship on Zimbabwe's 'crisis', it takes seriously matters of knowing and ontology with respect to chivanhu (erroneously understood as "tradition" of the Shona people).
Placing security studies in the context of contemporary discourses about the "colonial comeback" and posthumanism, this book postulates the notion of staticide which avers that the effacement of African state sovereignty is crucial for the security of the oncoming empire. Understood in the light of posthumanism, antihumanism, animism, postanthropocentrism and transhumanism; African human security has evidently been put on a recession course together with African state security. Much as African states are demonised as so failed, defective, corrupt, weak and rogue to require recolonisation; transhumanism also assumes that human bodies are so corrupt, imperfect, defective, failed, rogue and weak to require not only enhancements or augmentation but also to beckon recolonisation. Also, deemed to be ecologies, human bodies are set to be liberalised and democratised in the interest of nonhuman viruses, nanobots, microchips, bacteria, fungi and other pathogens living within the bodies. The book critically examines the security implications of theorising human bodies as ecologies for nonhuman entities. Reading staticide together with transhumanism, this book foresees transhumanist new eugenics that are accompanying the new empire in a supposedly Anthropocene world that serves to justify the sacrifice and disposability of some surplus humans living in the recesses and nether regions of the empire. Paying attention to the "colonial comeback," the book urges African scholars not to mistake imperial transformation for decolonisation. The book is invaluable for scholars and activists in African studies, anthropology, decoloniality, sociology, politics, development studies, security studies, sociology and anthropology of science and technology studies, and environmental studies.
Highlighting the problematiques of working with a narrow version of greenhouse effects or global warming, this book posits the theory of necroclimatism that encompasses broader versions of greenhouse effects and global warming. Conceiving cultures, societies, moral sensibilities, epistemologies, polities, economies, legal systems and religions of the formerly colonised peoples as greenhoused and entrapped in the heat of global apartheid and neo-colonialism, the book refuses to be confined to the pufferies of physical conceptualisations of greenhousing and global warming. Underlining the supposed disposability and dispensability of colonised peoples, the notion of necroclimatism explicates ways in which some people suffer various forms of death, which have increasingly become a feature of global apartheid and neo-colonialism that are cast in spectral sacrificial logics. Deemed to constitute disposable bodies, disposable cultures, disposable polities, disposable societies, disposable epistemologies, disposable religions, disposable laws and disposable economies, the sacrificed are, in the age of climate catastrophism, once again reminded that they 'have duties to die', to become extinct in order to save the global spaceship that is sinking due to climate change and global warming. This book therefore argues that in a sacrificial world (dis)order, binaries between humans and animals, good and evil, moral and immoral, the dead and the living necessarily vanish in the nefarious logic of what marks the era of climate catastrophism and the attendant necroclimatism. The book further argues that a sacrificial world (dis)order is necessarily a posthumanist and postanthropocentric world (dis)order, which should be never granted space in African worlds and even beyond. The book thus, raises fundamental questions for African anticipatory regimes, and for this reason it is handy for scholars in political science, sociology, social anthropology, development studies, environmental studies, agricultural studies, legal studies, food science, geography, religious studies and decolonial fields of studies.
The emergent technoscientific New World Order is being legitimised through discourses on openness and inclusivity. The paradox is that openness implies vulnerability and insecurities, particularly where closure would offer shelter. While some actors, including NGOs, preach openness of African societies, Africans clamour for protection, restitution and restoration. Africans struggle for ownership and access to housing, for national, cultural, religious, economic, and social belonging that would offer them the necessary security and protection, including protection from the global vicissitudes and matrices of power. In the presence of these struggles, to presuppose openness would be to celebrate vulnerability and insecurities. This book examines ways in which emergent technologies expose Africans and, more generally, peoples of the global south to political, economic, social, cultural and religious shocks occasioned by the coloniality of the global matrices of power. It notes that there is the use -- by global elites -- of technologies to incite postmodern revolutions designed to compound the vicissitudes and imponderables in the already unsettled lives of people north and south. Particularly targeted by these technologies are African and other governments that do not cooperate in the fulfilment of the interests of the hegemonic global elites. The book is handy to students and practitioners in security studies, African studies, development studies, global studies, policy studies, and political science.
Cover -- Title page -- Copyright page -- List of Contributors -- Contents -- Chapter One - Consuming or Being Consumed in the New World Order? GMOs as an Insult to the Dispossessed and Impoverished of the Earth -- Introduction -- Chapter Outlines -- References -- Chapter Two - Human Culling and Super-colonialism? Human Rights Issues of Doling Out Genetically Modified Food in Africa -- Introduction -- The Global Elite and the Playing of God -- World Economy, Human Identities and Epistemologies -- GMOs: An Insult to the Dispossessed and Impoverished of the Earth -- Human Rights Practices and the Hypocrisy of the Global North -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter Three - Drinking to Death? The Proliferation of Illicit Mozambican Alcoholic Spirits in 21st Century Zimbabwe -- Introduction -- Situating the study in discourses of alcohol abuse and consumption behaviour -- Commercialisation and rampant consumption of illicit Mozambican alcoholic spirits in 21st century Zimbabwe -- Explanation for the rampant abuse of prohibited foreign spirits in Zimbabwe -- Impact of illicit foreign alcoholic spirits on the Zimbabwean society -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter Four - Beyond the Genetically Modified Foods (GMFs) War: Reflections on the Effects of GMFs on Africa -- Introduction -- The effects of GMFs to Africa -- Conclusion -- Acronyms and Abbreviations -- References -- Chapter Five - Food, Health and Science in Africa: Locating GMOs Debates in the Shifting Global Epistemological Terrains -- Introduction -- Food Safety and Security: The historical trajectory of the Western dehumanisation and animalisation of Africans -- Force-Feeding Africans? Food Safety, Health and Insecurity -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter Six - Dumping and Use of Second Hand Clothes: Imperialism and Social Identity Loss in Nigeria -- Introduction.
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This is a book on the state of social anthropology as an academic discipline in contemporary Zimbabwe. The authors are frustrated and disheartened by a problematic visibility and sluggish growth of the discipline in the country. The book makes an important claim that the future and vibrancy of anthropology in Zimbabwe, lies in how well anthropologists in the country and in the diaspora are able to join efforts in articulating, debating and enhancing its relevance and vitality. The book provides critical overview and nuanced analyses of the role and continued relevance of the discipline in reading and interpreting the social unfolding of everyday life and dynamism. It is a vital text for understanding and contextualising histories and trends in the development of social anthropology in Zimbabwe and how anthropologists in the country navigate the tumultuous waters and struggles that have engrossed the discipline since colonial times. The book has the capacity to generate added insights and influence national, continental, and global debates and trends in the field
Tracing recent bouts of globalised Mugabephobia to Robert Mugabe's refusal to be neoimperially penetrated, this book juxtaposes economic liberalisation with the mounting liberalisation of African orifices. Reading land repossession and economic structural adjustment programmes together with what they call neoimperial structural adjustment of African orifices, the authors argue that there has been liberalisation of African orifices in a context where Africans are ironically prevented from repossessing their material resources. Juxtaposing recent bouts of Mugabephobia with discourses on homophobia, the book asks why empire prefers liberalising African orifices rather than attending to African demands for restitution, restoration and reparations. Noting that empire opposes African sovereignty, autonomy, and centralisation of power while paradoxically promoting transnational corporations' centralisation of power over African economies, the book challenges contemporary discourses about shared sovereignty, distributed governance, heterarchy, heteronomy and onticology. Arguing that colonialists similarly denied Africans of their human essence, the tome problematises queer sexualities, homosexuality, ecosexuality, cybersexuality and humanoid robotic sexuality all of which complicate supposedly fundamental distinctions between human beings and animals and machines. Provocatively questioning queer sexuality and liberalised orifices that serve to divert African attention from the more serious unfinished business of repossessing material resources, the book insightfully compares Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Thomas Sankara and Julius Kambarage Nyerere who emphasised the imperatives of African autonomy, ownership, control and sovereignty over natural resources. Observing Africans' interest in repossessing ownership and control over their resources, the book wonders why so much, queer, international attention is focused on foisting queer sexuality while downplaying more burning issues of resource repossession, human dignity, equality and equity craved by Africans for whom life is not confined to sexuality. With insights for scholars in sociology, development studies, law, politics, African studies, anthropology, transformation, decolonisation and decoloniality, the book argues that liberal democracy is a façade in a world that is actually ruled through criminocracy.
