Images of whiteness in Zimbabwe projected in the media have been of white population as victims being disposed of land and exposed to violence. In the award-winning documentary, Mugabe and the White African, the film focuses on white Zimbabwean family who challenges the Fast Track land redistribution program. David McDermott Hughes’ interprets the perspectives of land and landscape and its origins. In Whiteness in Zimbabwe, David McDermott Hughes principal argument is that European settlers identified themselves with the African landscape rather than with the social characteristics of the native Africans. The importance of landscape to white identity led to the engineering and structural development of the landscape. Hughes contends that the white colonizers used the land, nature and ecology to escape the social problems, to avoid ‘the other’ which in this case was the black Zimbabweans that were sharing the same living space. Through such landscape engineering, the white Zimbabweans believed that they would belong to Zimbabwe and Africa. However, Hugh argues that “by writing themselves to single-mindedly into the landscape, many whites wrote themselves out of society (p. 25).” Furthermore, Hughes argues that this was not a form of racism, but rather escaping the social surrounding to avoid conflict. This concept has led to Hughes to wanting to stop romanticizing of land in order to avoid social issues.
Hughes argues that European settlers in Zimbabwe have restructure the landscape that ‘imagine the native away’ (xii), while inserting their own identity to nature. Colonial representation of landscape is empty, a place that is legitimized by occupation. “They avoided blacks, preferring instead to invest emotionally and artistical...
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...farmers and black farmers. ughs believes the dislocation of white farmers was an inevitable consequence of their environmental and cultural tunnel vision and decades of disconnect from both local and wider black society. Hugh claims that white ZImbabweannes did not have any entitlements through indigenieity. The land reforms “recast[ed] Zibabwean whites as European settlers - minus colonial power! (p. 109).”
Landscape is significant in shaping identity. In a political sense, it draws boundaries of where a new country begins. Socially it draws boundaries to the living space of different cultures and languages. In the case of white Zimbabwean, they interfered in preexisting culture, thus there was going to be cultural clash. However in order to identify themselves as Zimbabweans and african. landscape defined as solely geographical was a way to gain their identity.
Mills 17 states that “the discourse establishes what is natural as well as unnatural, and as a result the unnatural is looked down on.” This is also how Africa is portrayed through Doris Lessing’s work in The grass is singing. The way she portrays Africa can be due to the fact that she was a liberal writer.
“Clearing a rain forest to plant annuals is like stripping an animal first of its fur, then its skin. The land howls. Annual crops fly on a wing and a prayer. And even if you manage to get a harvest, why, you need roads to take it out! Take one trip overland here and you'll know forever that a road in the jungle is a sweet, flat, impossible dream. The soil falls apart. The earth melts into red gashes like the mouths of whales. Fungi and vines throw a blanket over the face of the dead land. It's simple, really. Central Africa is a rowdy society of flora and fauna that have managed to balance together on a trembling geologic plate for ten million years: when you clear off part of the plate, the whole slides into ruin… To be here without doing everything wrong requires a new agriculture, a new sort of planning, a new religion” (524-525).
In America, essentially everyone is classified in terms of race in a way. We are all familiar with terms such as Caucasian, African-American, Asian, etc. Most Americans think of these terms as biological or natural classifications; meaning that all people of a certain race share similarities on their D.N.A. that are different and sets that particular race apart from all the other races. However, recent genetic studies show that there’s no scientific basis for the socially popular idea that race is a valid taxonomy of human biological difference. This means that humans are not divided into different groups through genetics or nature. Contrary to scientific studies, social beliefs are reflected through racial realism. Racial realists believe that being of a particular race does not only have phenotypical values (i.e. skin color, facial features, etc.), but also broadens its effects to moral, intellectual and spiritual characteristics.
Afrocentricity, as defined by Asante, is a “consciousness, quality of thought, mode of analysis, and actionable perspective where Africans seek, from agency, to assert subject place within the context of African history” (Asante 16). In essence, all roads converge and diverge with the African continent, with its rich history of pioneering triumphs and profound tribulations; Africa and all of her descendants are the end all, be all of one’s focus. There are five criteria to Afrocentricity: “(1) An interest in psychological location; (2) a commitment to finding the African subject place; (3) the defense of African cultural elements; (4) a commitment to lexical refinement; (5) a commitment to correct the dislocations in the ...
What Yuxweluptun meant by “Its not a pretty picture” the history of the First Nations people the impact of historical traumas: colonialism, racism, genocide, government laws and other issues: environmental [clear cutting, global warming, water pollution and oil industry] facing the First Nations. (L. P. Yuxweluptun Introductory Video) Throughout his career Yuxweluptun has painted the reality of the discourse of the First Nations People within the dominant culture (Watson 881). By using art as a way to start the conversation or addressing difficult issues as well as a way to visually express your opinion Yuxweluptun blends the traditional form line with vivid colors makes it palatable (L. P. Yuxweluptun). Contemporary Northwest Coast artists such as Sonny Assu, Nicholas Galanin and Lyle Wilson use their personal experience, tribal identity and how the dominant culture impact them for inspiration and the means to ground them while expressing themselves through the multitude of art genres.
During a recent visit to Jamaica, I observed a number of resorts that themed their golf courses and pools after the old sugar plantations of the island. As the sun-burnt American and British children splashed among the recreation of the 'old mill', local Jamaicans in floral uniforms served drinks to the adults lounging by the pool. The association between the plantation and the modern resort did not appear to disturb the tourists relaxing in the sun. And why should it? This is a different time. The Jamaicans, of whom 91% are descendents of plantation slaves, live and work freely on the Island. As I walked along the beaches which were quickly eroding due to the coastal development by such resorts, I watched the Jamaican employees sweep the seaweed into small piles and carry them off the beach in order to maintain the postcard view of the ocean that the tourists traveled there to see. It occurred to me that something more was at work there. The way in which indigenous cultures, peoples and their land have been commercialized and commodified for the enjoyment of pleasure seeking tourists must have roots somewhere. I began to wonder in what way the acceptance of past exploration and conquest by Europeans of land and people created a justification for today's exploitation of indigenous cultures and environments through tourism and other such devices as transnational corporations and trade.
Race, as a general understanding is classifying someone based on how they look rather than who they are. It is based on a number of things but more than anything else it’s based on skin's melanin content. A “race” is a social construction which alters over the course of time due to historical and social pressures. Racial formation is defined as how race shapes and is shaped by social structure, and how racial categories are represented and given meaning in media, language and everyday life. Racial formation is something that we see changing overtime because it is rooted in our history. Racial formation also comes with other factors below it like racial projects. Racial projects seek
The recorded history of Jamaica begins in May 1494 when Christopher Columbus arrived on the island during his second voyage to the New World. At that point Jamaica was inhabited by the Tainos, a calm and peaceful people who lived simple lives. From as early as our primary school education, Jamaicans are taught that the arrival of the Spanish totally disrupted the tranquillity the Tinos enjoyed; bringing unknown communicable diseases to the island and forcing the Tainos to perform difficult tasks. The marks the beginning of violence and trauma on the island Christopher Columbus described as the “fairest isle mine eyes ever beheld”. Within fifty years the Taino population on the island was wiped out however the transition of the island from a peaceful idyllic paradise to a violent society did not end with the extinction of the Tainos. Rather it was merely the beginning, as by 1513 the Spaniards had begun the transhipment of Africans to the island as slaves. Like the Tainos, the Africans who came to Jamaica, were subjected to slavery and its well documented dehumanizing and traumatic experiences.
Muhammad Ali, a famous boxer, once said, “Hating People because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. I’s just plain wrong” (Goodreads, 2015). For many centuries, ethnic conflict between the humans have existed immortally due the never changing differences of culture and values, spinning the cycle of war. Fortunately, some have ended however some still remain immortal in the eyes of those who have experience struggle to this date. The lack of awareness of problems in a cultural crisis concerning those who fall victim to a system and society that discriminates and alienates. With assistance of Critical Race Theory, this essay will examine how the role of race with has affected has caused consequences within the lives of marginalized groups within society through the lives and their relationship with those in their communities.
In Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, one of the major themes is white destruction of South African's native tribes. In the novel, whites come to South Africa in search of gold and use natives as their source of labor. They break apart the tribe and offer nothing to replace the broken homes. The title of the novel supports the pain that the white man's destruction of the tribe is causing to the beloved country of Africa.
The Ending of White Minority Rule in South Africa Apartheid was a major historical event, and perhaps the biggest event. in South Africa’s history. Apartheid is a policy of racial segregation, the word meaning ‘separateness’ in Afrikaans. It was introduced in 1948 by the white minority and made sure that the whites were superior in every possible way. However, the whites ruled over.
This chapter explores the idea of landscape in an anthropological construct. Hirsch aims to move away from the western ideals of understanding of landscape, and deconstruct it in an attempt to understand the local interoperation of landscape to prove it is part of a cultural process. Landscape has been used as a “standard framing device” (p1) by those looking from the outside in across anthropological history. Hirsch is looking to explore the landscape through the cultural understandings of the local people. (p1-5)
The stranger still lives among the people of Zimbabwe, though the colonial political authority has left. Yet I wonder if the town elder speaking in the above passage from Yvonne Vera's Nehanda would recognize current Zimbabwean authorities as strangers or countrymen. Could he relate to today's government officials and understand the languages which they speak? Would he feel at home in an African country with borders defined by European imperial powers without regard to the various ethnic nations involved? Post-colonial theory attempts to explain problems such as these, yet it does so almost exclusively in the languages of the European colonial powers. Europeans even created the word Africa. "To name the world is to 'understand' it, to know it and to have control over it" (Ashcroft 283). Because knowledge is power, and words, whether written or spoken, are the medium of exchange, using words incurs responsibility.
The origin of modern humans has been debated for years. On either side of the debate lies the multi-regional theory, and the Out of Africa theory. The multi-regional theory states that Homo erectus left Africa, and after separating into different regions, collectively evolved into the modern humans we see today. The Out of Africa theory states that modern humans evolved in Africa, and then migrated to different regions. In this theory, it is believed that modern humans replaced all other descendants of Homo erectus. The Out of Africa theory is generally more accepted, and the evidence in favor of it is compelling. Much of the evidence for the multi-regional theory has been falsified. However, there are still strong supporters for each theory.
In Sepamla’s poem “This Land,” he focuses more on Black South African’s heritage in order to build a sense of Unity and pride; “This land defines its texture by me/ its sweat and blood are salted by me/ I’ve strained muscles yoked/on the turning wheel of this land/ I am this land of mine/ I’ve never asked for a portion/ there’s never been a need to/ I am he land” (Sepamla, 17.) The purpose of the Black Consciousness movement was to destroy the notion of Black inferiority that apartheid has tirelessly tried to instill, Sepamla helps build the Black Consciousness by letting his Black South African readers know that the land they live in has always been theirs no matter who takes it and tries to control it, they are truly African and Africa will