Snapshots presents Tendai Mangena (Zimbabwe to U.S., 2019-20) on her new book Cultures of Change in Contemporary Zimbabwe

"Cultures of Change in Contemporary Zimbabwe engages the cultures, and cultural expressions of the 2017 Zimbabwean coup which ousted long-time ruler Robert Mugabe"

Could you tell us a little more about your new book Cultures of Change in Contemporary Zimbabwe? 

I co-edited Cultures of Change in Contemporary Zimbabwe (Routledge, 2021) with Oliver Nyambi (University of the Free State, South Africa) and Gibson Ncube (Stellenbosch University, South Africa). The book engages the cultures, and cultural expressions of the 2017 Zimbabwean coup which ousted long-time ruler Robert Mugabe and replaced him with his former confidante Emmerson Mnangagwa. The book foregrounds culture (broadly conceptualised), in analyses of an array of social, economic, political, and historical changes caused by (and/or related to) the coup. The notion of culture is deliberately stressed in this book to reflect its overarching concern with the post-coloniality of ‘transition’ as a culturally performed concept, event and process that embroils long-drawn plots, historiographies, and hagiographies in the making of socio-political change in Zimbabwe. The focus on cultures of change culminating in and resulting as the coup and the “Second Republic” allow broader and deeper enquiries into the backstories informing the political and moral complications of the coup and the “New Dispensation” as change. 

How have your experiences as a Fulbrighter influenced the book?

The idea of the book was crafted in June 2020, while I was in California at University of California, Riverside. At that time, UCR just like other institutions in America and the rest of the world, was closed due to the global coronavirus pandemic. Because of restrictions on movement, I spent the greater part of my Fulbright stay indoors. This ‘unique’ Fulbright experience gave me a conducive space to concentrate on my Fulbright-funded research as well as all the ‘Cultures of Change’ project with my colleagues and best friends who were also ‘stuck’ in different parts of the world, far away from home. So, this book reminds me of the connections outside the International Village of UCR, where I stayed, that kept me sane during my Fulbright days in California during a very difficult time.

Where would you most like to live?

I love to live in my home country Zimbabwe but enjoy short stays, here and there, in other parts of the world.

About Tendai

I have a PhD in African literature from Leiden University and I am currently an Associate Professor of African literature in the Department of English and Media Studies at Great Zimbabwe University and Research Fellow in the Department of English at the University of the Free State. In 2020, I was a Fulbright Research Scholar in the Department of Comparative Literature and Languages at the University of California, Riverside, USA. Before that, I was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Postcolonial Literary and Cultural studies at Bremen University, in Germany from 2016 to 2018, and a Humboldt Visiting Fellow in the same department from July-August 2019. My research interests are at the intersections of literary and cultural studies with a focus on questions of gender, politics, power, and justice. 

Read more about Cultures of Change in Contemporary Zimbabwe and information on purchasing via the promotional flyer.