Recent years in Zimbabwe have seen an unprecedented wave of public engagement with Gukurahundi, a violent period of state-led military repression that took place in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands in the immediate post-independence era. This public activism is led, by and large, by a second generation of survivors, revealing Gukurahundi’s painful and complex intergenerational legacies. Our roundtable will zoom in on projects and actors at the forefront of recent activism, exploring the politics of memory in a context of ongoing repression and violence.
First Speaker: Dr Nkululeko Sibanda is a Senior Lecturer in the Drama Department at Rhodes University, South Africa, and current AfOx Visiting Fellow at the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford. His talk will focus on Victory Siyanqoba's verbatim theatre performance, Bhalagwe is Burning, as a site for (re)membering and (un)burying Gukurahundi stories and narratives. He frames this performance as activism in the broader context of the silencing of Gukurahundi narratives.
Second Speaker: Dr Lena Reim is a Departmental Lecturer at the Oxford Department of Politics and International Relations. Drawing on interviews and observations of public engagement, her talk will provide reflections on the wider generational experience that underlies this recent wave of activism, while exploring the varied political narratives and projects embedded within it.
Discussant: Dr Miles Tendi, Associate Professor at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and the Oxford Department of Politics and International Relations.
