Download or read book The Politics of Language and Nation Building in Zimbabwe written by Finex Ndhlovu and published by Peter Lang Limited, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the exclusion of minority languages (and their speakers) from the mainstream domains of everyday social life in postcolonial Zimbabwe. It considers forces of hegemonic nation building, subtle cultural oppression and a desire for linguistic uniformity as major factors contributing to the social exclusion of Zimbabweans from language groups other than Shona and Ndebele. The book interprets the various forms of language-based exclusion exercised by Shona and Ndebele language speakers over minority groups as constituting a form of linguistic imperialism. Contrary to the popular view that English is Zimbabwe's «killer language», which should be replaced by selected indigenous languages that are perceived as more nationally «authentic» and better grounded in both pre- and post-imperial frameworks, this book argues that linguistic imperialism has very little to do with whether the dominating language is «foreign» or «indigenous». The author discusses oral submissions from minority language speakers, language experts, policy-makers and educators. While the focus is specifically on the politics of language and identity in Zimbabwe, this case study gives an insight into the complexity of identity and nation building in postcolonial Africa.
Download or read book Hegemony and Language Policies in Southern Africa written by Finex Ndhlovu and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hegemony and Language Policies in Southern Africa argues that language policy - whether formal or informal, micro or macro - has always been the centrepiece of identity imaginings, struggles for political emancipation, and quests for cultural affirmation and economic advancement in the colonial and postcolonial histories of African nations. This book addresses questions on the social and political history of language policies, focusing on their significance for ethnic, immigrant and social groups, as well as for various political projects in southern Africa, as they have unfolded from the late.
Download or read book Language Policy and Nation Building in Post Apartheid South Africa written by Jon Orman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-08-27 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The preamble to the post-apartheid South African constitution states that ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity’ and promises to ‘lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law’ and to ‘improve the quality of life of all citizens’. This would seem to commit the South African government to, amongst other things, the implementation of policies aimed at fostering a common sense of South African national identity, at societal dev- opment and at reducing of levels of social inequality. However, in the period of more than a decade that has now elapsed since the end of apartheid, there has been widespread discontent with regard to the degree of progress made in connection with the realisation of these constitutional aspirations. The ‘limits to liberation’ in the post-apartheid era has been a theme of much recent research in the ?elds of sociology and political theory (e. g. Luckham, 1998; Robins, 2005a). Linguists have also paid considerable attention to the South African situation with the realisation that many of the factors that have prevented, and are continuing to prevent, effective progress towards the achievement of these constitutional goals are linguistic in their origin.
Download or read book Language Nation and Development in Southeast Asia written by Lee Hock Guan and published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This book was released on 2007 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Papers from a workshop on Language, Nation and Development in Southeast Asia held in Singapore, 2003.
Download or read book Language Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms written by Finex Ndhlovu and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the linguistic and discursive elements of social and economic policies and national political leader statements to read new meanings into debates on border protection, national sovereignty, immigration, economic indigenisation, land reform and black economic empowerment. It adds a fresh angle to the debate on nationalisms and transnationalism by pushing forward a more applied agenda to establish a clear and empirically-based illustration of the contradictions in current policy frameworks around the world and the debates they invite. The author’s novel vernacular discourse approach contributes new points of method and interpretation that will advance scholarly conversations on nationalisms, transnationalism and other forms of identity imaginings in a transient world.
Download or read book Memory and Erasure written by Mandlenkosi Mpofu and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2023-03-28 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memory and Erasure is part of a growing body of academic literature to properly document and narrate the Gukurahundi genocide which, hopefully, may contribute to survivors and victims families quest for justice and closure. Deployed in January 1983, the Fifth Brigades legacy has continued to cast a dark shadow not just over Matabeleland and Midlands, but over the entire country. As the title of the book and also the chapters forcefully underline, a culture of violence led by the state and those who control its levers pervades the whole of Zimbabwe and continues to do so partly because of the failure to address the Gukurahundi genocide and its aftermaths, which marked the height of Zimbabwean authorities tendency to use violence to crush dissent and opposition. Collectively, these essays explore different aspects of the Gukurahundi in order (1) to challenge the silencing of the genocide as a mainstream public issue in Zimbabwe, (2) to demonstrate how, deliberately and systematically, Zimbabwes rulers have refused to allow this issue to be resolved and have, in the process, completely disregarded the views, demands, feelings and sensitivities of affected individuals and communities, (3) to explore and critique the institutional, legal/ constitutional and political frameworks that have sustained the failure to find a solution, (4) to demonstrate how Zimbabwe, as a state, bears collective responsibility for Gukurahundi crimes and should therefore hold itself accountable and institute a clear and honest programme to provide a lasting solution that does not lead to further division, and (5) this collection emphasises, in various ways, that the solution to the political culture that has engulfed Zimbabwe and prevented it from attaining its independence goals lies in resolving the aftermath of Gukurahundi and addressing the culture of violence, repression and impunity in Zimbabwean politics.
Download or read book Electoral Politics in Zimbabwe Volume I written by Esther Mavengano and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume one of Electoral Politics in Zimbabwe pays special attention to the overarching view that the 2023 harmonized elections define the fate of the major presidential contenders and their parties as well as (re) shaping the political and economic trajectories of the nation. Cognizant of the complex nature of the Zimbabwean political realm and nuanced dynamics at play, the chapters in this volume cover three interrelated themes: the electoral environment in Zimbabwean politics; language, politics, and elections in Zimbabwe; and lastly, electoral institutions and human rights in Zimbabwean politics. The chapters foreground the ongoing tensions and politicking between the two main rivals, the ruling party, ZANU PF and the main opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC). The contributors also highlight the impact of internal tensions and factionalism within the contending parties, the apparent voter apathy, disconcerting voices due to claims about lack of transparency and a toxic political space as factors impacting on the outcome of the 2023 presidential elections. The volume will appeal to academics and practitioners in politics, human rights, religion, gender, media, languages, linguistics, and development studies.
Download or read book The Social and Political History of Southern Africa s Languages written by Tomasz Kamusella and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first to offer an interdisciplinary and comprehensive reference work on the often-marginalised languages of southern Africa. The authors analyse a range of different concepts and questions, including language and sociality, social and political history, multilingual government, and educational policies. In doing so, they present significant original research, ensuring that the work will remain a key reference point for the subject. This ambitious and wide-ranging edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of southern African languages, sociolinguistics, history and politics.
Download or read book Bondage of Boundaries and Identity Politics in Postcolonial Africa written by J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What has confounded African efforts to create cohesive, prosperous and just states in postcolonial Africa? What has been the long-term impact of the Berlin Conference of 1884-5 on African unity and African statehood? Why is postcolonial Africa haunted by various ethno national conflicts? Is secession and irredentism the solution? Can we talk of ethno-futures for Africa? These are the kinds of fundamental questions that this important book addresses. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Brilliant Mhlangas book introduces the metaphor of the northern problem to dramatise the fact that there is no major African postcolonial state that does not enclose within its borders a disgruntled minority that is complaining of marginalization, domination and suppression. The irony is that in 1963 at the formation of the OAU, postcolonial African leaders embraced the boundaries arbitrarily drawn by European colonialists and institutionalised the principle of inviolability of bondage of boundaries thereby contributing to the problem of ethno-national conflicts. The successful struggle for independence of the Eritrean people and the secession of South Sudan in 2011 have encouraged other dominated and marginalised groups throughout Africa to view secession as an option. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Mhlanga successfully assembled competent African scholars to deal exhaustively with various empirical cases of ethno-national conflicts throughout the African continent as well as engaging with such pertinent issues as Pan-Africanism as a panacea to these problems. This important book delves deeper into complex issues of space, languages, conflict, security, nation-building, war on terror, secession, migration, citizenship, militias, liberation, violence and Pan-Africanism.
Download or read book Language Conflict and Language Rights written by William D. Davies and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-09 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the colonial hegemony of empire fades around the world, the role of language in ethnic conflict has become increasingly topical, as have issues concerning the right of speakers to choose and use their preferred language(s). Such rights are often asserted and defended in response to their being violated. The importance of understanding these events and issues, and their relationship to individual, ethnic, and national identity, is central to research and debate in a range of fields outside of, as well as within, linguistics. This book provides a clearly written introduction for linguists and non-specialists alike, presenting basic facts about the role of language in the formation of identity and the preservation of culture. It articulates and explores categories of conflict and language rights abuses through detailed presentation of illustrative case studies, and distills from these key cross-linguistic and cross-cultural generalizations.
Download or read book Language Matters in Contemporary Zimbabwe written by Collen Sabao and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-17 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Speaking to a broader global preoccupation with the state of languages and language development, this book considers issues surrounding the diverse languages, linguistic communities, and cultures of Zimbabwe. Reflecting on Shona, Xitsonga, Sotho, Xhosa, Tjwao, Nambya, IsiNdebele, Nyanja, Tshivenda, English and Braille, the book uncovers both the internal and external factors that impact language structures, language use and language ideologies across the country. The book considers how colonial legacies and contemporary language domination and minoritisation have led to language endangerment. It considers the fate of communities whose languages are marginalised and, in the process, poses questions on what can and should be done to preserve Zimbabwean languages. The authors' offerings range across subjects as diverse as music, linguistic innovation, education, human rights, literature, language politics and language policy, in order to build a rich and nuanced picture of language matters in the country. Coming at a critical moment of increasing mobility, migration, cultural plurality and globalisation, this book will be an important resource for researchers across African literature, linguistics, communication, policy and politics.
Download or read book State Building and Multilingual Education in Africa written by Ericka A. Albaugh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do governments in Africa make decisions about language? What does language have to do with state-building, and what impact might it have on democracy? This manuscript provides a longue durée explanation for policies toward language in Africa, taking the reader through colonial, independence, and contemporary periods. It explains the growing trend toward the use of multiple languages in education as a result of new opportunities and incentives. The opportunities incorporate ideational relationships with former colonizers as well as the work of language NGOs on the ground. The incentives relate to the current requirements of democratic institutions, and the strategies leaders devise to win elections within these constraints. By contrasting the environment faced by African leaders with that faced by European state-builders, it explains the weakness of education and limited spread of standard languages on the continent. The work combines constructivist understanding about changing preferences with realist insights about the strategies leaders employ to maintain power.
Download or read book Do Zimbabweans Exist written by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2009 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the triumphs and tribulations of the Zimbabwean national project, providing a radical and critical analysis of the fossilisation of Zimbabwean nationalism against the wider context of African nationalism in general. The book departs radically from the common 'praise-texts' in seriously engaging with the darker aspects of nationalism, including its failure to create the nation-as-people, and to install democracy and a culture of human rights. The author examines how the various people inhabiting the lands between the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers entered history and how violence became a central aspect of the national project of organising Zimbabweans into a collectivity in pursuit of a political end.
Download or read book Nationalism and National Projects in Southern Africa written by Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo J. and published by Africa Institute of South Africa. This book was released on 2013 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the fact that nationalism and its national projects have in recent years been severely criticised by postcolonial theorists for being fundamentalist and essentialist; by feminists for being patriarchal and exclusive; by global financial institutions for being antagonistic to development and globalisation; by Pan-Africanists for being anticontinental unity; and by those Africans born after decolonisation for being irrelevant; Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Finex Ndhlovu's book convincingly argues that nationalism has defied its death and displayed remarkable resilience and resonance. Since the end of the Cold War, what has been poignant has been the enduring contest, tensions and contradictions between the growth of various forms of transnationalism on the one hand and a resurgence of territorial as well as other narrow and xenophobic forms of nationalism on the other. In this important book, Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Ndhlovu provide new critical reflections on nationalism and its national projects in southern Africa covering South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, a member of SADC). The national question is interrogated from different disciplinary vantage points to reveal how it impinges on contemporary challenges of nation-building, development, devolution of power, language questions, and citizenship on the one hand and ethnicity, nativism and xenophobia on the other.
Download or read book Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo of Zimbabwe written by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-17 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a pioneering study of Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo, a Zimbabwean nationalist whose crucial role in the country’s anti-colonial struggle has largely gone unrecognized. These essays trace his early influence on Zimbabwean nationalism in the late 1950s and his leadership in the armed liberation movement and postcolonial national-building processes, as well as his denigration by the winners of the 1980 elections, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. The Nkomo that emerges is complex and contested, the embodiment of Zimbabwe’s tortured trajectory from colony to independent postcolonial state. This is an essential corrective to the standard history of twentieth-century Zimbabwe, and an invaluable resource for scholars of African nationalist liberation movements and nation-building.
Download or read book Language and Decolonisation written by Finex Ndhlovu and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-23 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language and Decolonisation is the first collection to bring together views from across scholarly communities that are committed to the agenda of decolonising knowledge in language study. Edited by leading figures in the field, the chapters offer new insights on how ‘decolonising’ can be adopted as a methodology for charting the next steps in solving practical language-related problems in educational and related social policy areas. Divided into two sections, the book covers the coloniality of language, the materiality of culture and colonial scripts, the decolonisation imperative, multilingualism discourse and decolonisation, and decolonising languages in public discourse. With 20 chapters authored by experts from across the globe, this pioneering collection is an essential reference and resource for advanced students, scholars, and researchers of language and culture, sociolinguistics, decolonial studies, racial studies, and related areas.
Download or read book Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa written by Finex Ndhlovu and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book interrogates and problematises African multilingualism as it is currently understood in language education and research. It challenges the enduring colonial matrices of power hidden within mainstream conceptions of multilingualism that have been propagated in the Global North and then exported to the Global South under the aegis of colonial modernity and pretensions of universal epistemic relevance. The book contributes new points of method, theory and interpretation that will advance scholarly conversations on decolonial epistemology by introducing the notion of coloniality of language – a summary term that describes the ways in which notions of language and multilingualism in post-colonial societies remain colonial. The authors begin the process of mapping out what a socially realistic notion of multilingualism would look like if we took into account the voices of marginalised and ignored African communities of practice – both on the African continent and in the diasporas.
