Although limited by the angle on the media and journalism, the book, The idea of Matabeleland in digital spaces: Genealogies, discourses, and epistemic struggles uses interdisciplinarity well to bring into focus a number of issues around the discourse of Matabeleland. The book engages with the constructions and recurrences of the “idea” of Matabeleland against a backdrop of numerous socio-historical, political and epistemic contestations. One point that the book makes is that the idea of Matabeleland is contingent and heavily contested. In that sense, the book traces the multiple genealogies of “being Matabele” and the complexities, tensions and shifts surrounding these cultural identities. This review will first describe the book before discussing its strengths and weaknesses.
The book is made up of 15 chapters. Besides the two editors, it has 14 other contributors drawn from universities in Zimbabwe and South Africa who have a connection with Matabeleland, Zimbabwe’s southern provinces. In the introduction, the two editors, Mlotshwa and Ndlovu describe Matabeleland as the “South Western region of Zimbabwe” which is “a site of discursive, political and ideological struggles”. The 15 chapters are divided into three sections. The first section is mostly conceptual and theoretical and consisting of four chapters. Shepherd Mpofu makes the first contribution titled “Marginal societies online: A critical appreciation of genocide and its politics in cyberspace”, focusing on ways in which digital technologies have impacted the debates around nationality, identity, ethnicity, gender, among other differences in this region. Ndlovu’s chapter on “Counter-memory, ethno-nationalism and the discursive constructions of Matabeleland in digital spaces” discusses ways in which cultural identities are socially constructed. Mlotshwa’s chapter on “The pitfalls of Matabeleland as a (digital) work of memory” is a theoretical reflection on the discursive emergence of contemporary Matabeleland as a work of memory in online spaces. Moyo-Nyoni’s chapter on “Digital storytelling as a tool for peacebuilding in post-conflict Matabeleland” closes this section and is a qualitative study assessing the role of storytelling in trauma healing in Matabeleland.
The second section looks at the idea of minorities of minorities. The first chapter in this section and sixth in the book, Ncube and Mlotshwa’s “Hidden in public: The symbolic annihilation of the Khoisan people in Zimbabwe’s public sphere”, focuses on the representation of the minority ethnic group of the Khoisan people through analysing a documentary and mainstream media stories. Mutale’s chapter on “The BaTonga representations in Matabeleland imaginations” seeks to locate the Tonga people, the third largest ethnic group in Zimbabwe, in the idea of Matabeleland nationalist politics. Khupe’s contribution on “Kalanga activism and the imaginations of Matabeleland in digital spaces” uses data collected from three Kalanga activists through interviews to reflect on the Kalanga discourses that seek to reimagine the idea of Matabeleland. Mlotshwa and Bhebhe’s “Theorizing online female journalism as border practices in the case of Amakhosikazi Media, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe”, examines how women are effectively represented, that is spoken about and spoken for, in the media. It adds a gender aspect to the contest in Matabeleland discourses.
The third section focuses on ways in which the people of Matabeleland perform subalternity in digital space. The first chapter in this section, “Performing subalternity online: A critical study of the Centre for Innovation and Technology (CITE)”, by Ncube and Ndlovu draws on theorisation on the subaltern to examine the representation, voices and visibility of historically excluded Matabeleland communities in digital spaces. Nxumalo’s “Interrogating cyber-cultures and critical consciousness development in Matabeleland” uses Paulo Freire’s critical consciousness approach to analyse online discourses on the marginalisation and underdevelopment of Matabeleland region in Zimbabwe. The last chapter of the third section, “The communicative construction of Ndebele identity in Radio Mthwakazi” by Ncube is a discussion of the construction of the Ndebele identity or nation in discourse by an online radio station, Radio Mthwakazi. The last section of the book addresses the elephant in the room, in terms of the constructions of Matabeleland identity and identities, which is Ndebele nationalism in digital spaces. Moyo’s “Beyond provincialising a nation without a state: Representations of Matabeleland in uMthwakazi Review digital space” employs Aristotle’s rhetoric argumentation to demonstrate how a Facebook platform animates and promotes the imaginations of a Matabeleland “nation” in Zimbabwe. Ndebele’s chapter 14 on “‘The colonized mean little to the colonizer’: The digital lives of colonial diplomacy” analyses a court letter of intent to file an application to the Privy Council in the United Kingdom by a senior politician in Matabeleland. Msimanga’s “The (digital) return of the Ndebele monarchy?” looks at how, in 2019, the Ndebele people of Southern Zimbabwe endeavoured to reinstall their monarchy which was destroyed by colonialism in 1893. Tshuma and Phiri’s “Photographing the ‘nation’ in the digital age: A case of Matabeleland discourses on social media platforms” closes the book and critically examines the imagination of the Ndebele nationhood through visuals circulating on selected social media networks.
As the preceding outline of the book reveals, it dissects and analyses the question of Matabeleland from different intellectual cultures. While some of the chapters are conceptualised from a purely media studies perspective, some of the chapters draw on other disciplines such as liberation theology, visual studies, political science and diplomacy studies. For example, Moyo-Nyoni draws on liberation theology to open her chapter contribution powerfully arguing that “If the poor who knock at people’s doors, begging, are hungry for food; the poor of Matabeleland, who long to knock at every door including that of the Zimbabwean government, are hungry for an apology, reparations, reconciliation and peace.”
This is one chapter that attempts to construct the Matabeleland subject. It does this by investigating how ordinary people in the region of Matabeleland deal with the aftermath of the Gukurahundi genocide. The chapter, which is not so much conceptualised in terms of journalism and media, uses interviews and focus group methods to collect data from ordinary citizens in Matabeleland. These data are analysed and theorised through the liberation theology theoretical lenses. The other chapter that must be upheld as an example of intellectual creativity is Ndebele’s contribution, “‘The colonized mean little to the colonizer’”. Defining Matabeleland subjectivity as that of the colonised or colonial subjects, she writes powerfully that, “In Memmi’s words, ‘the colonized means little to the colonizer,’ the Ndebele have never been worth of attention from the British Empire” (p. 205). Rather than studying newspaper content only, Ndebele creatively reads, at close range, a court document produced by the late Ndebele nationalist, Welshman Mabhena and 34 others. This means that, besides drawing on textual analysis skills, Ndebele also combines history and discourse to make a case for the continued colonial diplomatic relations between the British Empire and its former colonies like Matabeleland.
The second section on the minorities of the minorities is an important part of not only this book but studies on Matabeleland in general. The makers of this book—editors and contributors combined—bravely open the Matabeleland Question to the question of ethnicity and how minority ethnic groups have for long been silenced and marginalised in the discourses around the region. In as much as the Matabeleland region has cried marginalisation in terms of Zimbabwean nationalism, the Kalanga, the Tonga, the Khoisan, the Venda and the Sotho, among other ethnic groups that make up Matabeleland, have also argued that in as far as Matabeleland nationalism pans out, they are marginalised and silenced. It is the Nguni element of Ndebele nationalism that is seen as dominating. Although the book closes by reaffirming Nguni based Ndebele nationalism, in this complete section it courageously opens this debate and gives space to the Khoisan, Kalanga and Tonga minority ethnic groups. The section also discusses the work of female journalists who run their own journalism project.
In conclusion, the Matabeleland Question is a broad discursive space. The media are just one aspect of or entry point into this broad question. As has become clear in the contributions discussed here, the contributors needed to go beyond the limiting media intellectual space in order to do justice to their subject. Also in conclusion, it must be noted that the book is an important contribution to the study of Matabeleland and Africa. In the words of Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “just like they have Yoruba Studies in Nigeria, here we have a good start in Matabeleland studies”.