Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a country whose longer past and shifting post-independence politics have both included violent histories, as well as often violent contestations over history itself. The Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe addresses the many ways in which pasts are variously experienced, remembered, claimed, denied or contested by differently positioned actors, and how this in turn shapes the politics of the present. It explores how such contestation is expressed: in literature, art, and the media; through exhumations and reburials; in state apology and political myth making; and in both traditional cultural heritage sites and the making of new national symbols.

Contributors are Jocelyn Alexander, Elleke Boehmer, Shadreck Chirikure, Simbarashe Shadreck Chitima, Lena Englund, Shari Eppel, Petina Gappah, Amanda Hammar, Pedzisai Maedza, Owen Maseko, Mphathisi Ndlovu, Minna Johanna Niemi, Astrid Rasch, Timothy Scarnecchia, Thomas Thondhlana, Katja Uusihakala.

Astrid Rasch, PhD (2017), University of Copenhagen, is associate professor of English at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She has published many articles on Zimbabwe and a monograph: Intimate Afterlives of Empire: Memory and Decolonisation in Autobiography (Manchester University Press, 2025).

Minna Johanna Niemi, PhD (2011), University at Buffalo, is associate professor of English at The Arctic University of Norway. She has published articles on African fiction and a monograph: Complicity and Responsibility in Contemporary African Writing (Routledge, 2021).

Amanda Hammar, PhD (2007), Roskilde University, is professor of African Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She has published widely on aspects of Zimbabwean politics, political economy and cultural politics over two decades, including co-editing Zimbabwe’s Unfinished Business: Rethinking Land, State and Nation in the Context of Crisis (Weaver Press 2003).