Exploring The Literary Representations Of Urban Survival And Coping Strategies In Selected Contemporary Zimbabwean Fiction In English From 1999 To 2009

ABSTRACT

This study is an exploration of the literary representation of survival and coping strategies during times of socio-political and economic crisis as presented in selected contemporary Zimbabwean fiction in English. The main purpose of the study was to investigate how fiction, particularly the short story, manages to capture the various innovative and resilient ways used by the people inhabiting the city during tempestuous and trying times, and how they manage to live with hope and positivity.

The study was primarily a qualitative, desktop research where from a total of nine short story anthologies, nineteen short stories and one novel were purposefully selected and analysed. This analysis was mainly informed by three theoretical frameworks - the resilience theory, trauma theory and the chronotope theory. Resilience theory is a literary interpretation of texts that puts emphasis on people’s strengths which enable them to survive and cope with challenges they meet in life. The chronotope is a theory which elucidates the fictional connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature. Resilience theory assisted in investigating the capacity for successful adaptation and socio-cultural innovation as presented through the characters in the selected fictional works. Trauma theory in literary studies refers to the literary presentation of a person’s emotional response to an overwhelming event that disrupts previous ideas of an individual’s sense of self and the standards by which one evaluates society. The chronotope theory helped in contextualising the study and

amplifying the period of extreme socio-political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe’s history (1999 to 2009) as a special case for scrutiny.

The study contributes to the creation and dissemination of knowledge on literary theory, particularly in its espousal of theoretical frameworks which cohere with practical issues faced by Zimbabwean people. The study also contributes to the body of knowledge which seeks to recognise the creative potential of disadvantaged people, as it recognises the innovativeness and agency of the ordinary people as represented through fiction about the Zimbabwe crisis.

The findings in this study revealed that human agency is ubiquitous and that Zimbabwean ordinary people are able to innovatively face their challenges with varied measures of success. The characters in the Zimbabwean short stories explored in this study courageously and resiliently reconstruct the city space to make it a liveable place of their own. The utilisation of city spaces for urban informalities helps the characters to negotiate space and thereby survive. It has further been revealed that in order to survive and adapt to new situations, the characters in the Zimbabwean literary fiction reflect what was really happening during the crisis, had to resiliently change their cultural identities and transform into protean beings. Furthermore, the study revealed that one way of negotiating crisis times is through migration. Through an analysis of metaphors of migration in Zimbabwean fiction, the study highlighted the role of diaspora and remittances as a critical coping strategy to survive catastrophic economic collapses. Moreover, the fictionalization of resource politics, which is how writers present the people’s claim on the natural resources, also revealed the democratic ways of surviving hegemonies and also building a peaceful ethos for a better future.

Based on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that human agency abounds in many forms and survival is still an option, in spite of the challenges faced by the ordinary people as presented by the characters in Zimbabwean fiction. It can also be concluded that the women characters as presented through the fiction are better able to cope with dystopian and crisis times than their male counterparts. Coping strategies demonstrate that the ordinary people are innovative, resilient and capable of exploiting opportunities at their disposal and manage change.