Representations of everyday life in post-2000 Zimbabwean short fiction
- Authors: Barure, Walter Kudzai
- Date: 2025-04-02
- Subjects: Zimbabwean fiction History and criticism , Zimbabwe Social conditions 21st century , Representation (Philosophy) , Everyday life , Digital storytelling Zimbabwe , Zimbabwean periodicals , Popular magazine
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/478478 , vital:78190 , DOI 10.21504/10962/478478
- Description: This dissertation explores the dynamic nature of cultural productions and the perpetual flux in everyday experiences within Zimbabwean social and cultural spaces over the past two decades. Amid Zimbabwe’s contemporary techno-economic milieu, there has been a remarkable surge in literary works initially tailored for print readership, then adapted for digital platforms. This shift reflects broader changes in the country’s cultural production, where the interplay between traditional publishing and digital innovation has opened new avenues for literary expression and access. The overarching goal is to investigate the connection between contemporary short fiction in Zimbabwe and the material processes of transformation and reproduction across various historical periods, forms, contexts, and platforms. It focuses on print and digital archives characterised by ephemerality, aesthetic disobedience to established norms, and the deconstruction of conventional narrative structures, motifs, and characters. These creative processes thrive on borrowing, sampling, and remixing elements from orature, novels, short stories, music, and films. The study argues that these adaptive modifications empower writers to experiment flexibly and capitalise on their literary content. It includes an interpretive analysis of short stories written in English by marginalised writers, published in print magazines such as Parade, Moto, and The Sunday Mail Magazine, as well as on digital platforms like blogs and Facebook. The primary objective is to illustrate how contemporary writers use fictional depictions of everyday life to interrogate prevalent themes like survival, circular migration, venality, occultism, and sexuality. The theoretical framework draws on the concepts of everyday living by De Certeau (1984), Newell and Okome (2013), and Adesokan’s (2023) technologies of reuse. These theories underpin the analysis of textual and interpretive practices in print and digital publications. Ultimately, this dissertation underscores the mutable nature of contemporary literary developments in Zimbabwe, ii highlighting their profound implications for writers and readers in an era marked by technological advancements and shifting paradigms of literary consumption. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Literary Studies in English, 2024
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- Date Issued: 2025-04-02
Music in everyday life: an exploration into the various uses of music among restaurant servers in Makhanda
- Authors: Dlamini, Andile Sakhile
- Date: 2024-10-11
- Subjects: Symbolic interactionism , Everyday life , Music Social aspects , Music and youth , Music Psychological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/466161 , vital:76702
- Description: Inspired by the theory of practice in everyday life and symbolic interactionist perspectives, this thesis offers an account and analysis of findings from a qualitative study. It aimed to investigate the everyday uses of music among restaurant servers (individuals) in Makhanda, on an intra-level of analysis. It explored music’s role in individuals’ lives, and how music as an art is influential in constructing their individuality or self in society. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted through face-to-face collaboration and an audio recording device. It was evident that music plays various roles in people’s lives. Music, seemingly intertwined with everyday life permits individuals to diversly use music, for instance with tackling their emotions and mood, as an accompaniment to tasks or even a symbol that serves subjective meaning to self, essentially transforming the routinized mundanity of every day. , Thesis (MSocSci) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2024
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- Date Issued: 2024-10-11