CURA Colloquium "Religion and Citizenship in Zimbabwe"

With Sara Rich Dorman, Senior Lecturer in African Politics, University of Edinburgh. This paper explores the political project of citizenship in Zimbabwe, tracing how the state has used legislative mechanisms and discursive strategies to shape citizenship norms and behaviour since 1980, contributing in no small part to ZANU(PF)’s continued hold on power. The paper rejects an account of citizenship as purely instrumental or driven by short-term political goals. Instead it interrogates the underlying ideological project that draws on Rhodesian era norms, values of ‘modernity’ and the liberation struggle to create a complex fusion of beliefs. This particular account of Zimbabwean citizenship is embedded in many institutions – including the church – which sustain and reproduce assumptions about citizen-state relations. But it is also contested by a growing range of organic intellectuals and activists. This paper focusses on religious leaders and activists, who, through sermons, writing and practical engagement, seek to construct an alternative conceptualization of what it means to be a ‘good’ citizen of Zimbabwe, in accordance with their faith and readings of the Bible. Reading the paper in advance is required. email longman@bu.edu Cosponsored with the School of Theology

When 12:45 pm to 2:15 pm on Friday, February 19, 2021
Location Zoom - Zoom Meeting Code: 978 5810 4239 Passcode: 599536