Intertextual,action-orientated,political and occasioned constructions of Zimbabwe as a country in crisis

Abstract

The notion that textual, verbal and visual representations of places are more or less accurate depictions of reality has been challenged by cultural geographers and discursive psychologists who regard language as constitutive rather than reflective. This paper builds on this work by demonstrating that constructions of Zimbabwe produced by UK residents from Zimbabwe during life history interviews in 2011 appropriated other representations; were action-orientated; had political consequences; and were orientated to the interactional context in which they were produced. More specifically, I show that the interviewees challenged the ‘narrative of the nation’ promoted by the ruling party and their supporters by producing intertextual constructions of Zimbabwe as a country in crisis; attributed blame for the crisis; and accounted for their presence in the UK.

Keywords

Accounting action-orientated blaming critical discursive psychology forced migrants intertextual nation place synthetic approach

We’re haemorrhaging as a nation

Take a leaf out of the Zim-dream

And its texture will be a nightmare

Our hopes ooze down sewer drains

Falling like the Zim-dollar

Crumbling into a fist-full of dust [. . .]

-Stanley Mupfudza (2009)

Introduction

A place is a space that has been invested with meaning (Cosgrove, 1989; Cresswell, 2015; Tuan, 1977). One way in which spaces are made meaningful is via their representation in verbal, written and visual forms. Cultural geographers have explored the way in which texts (broadly conceived) invest spaces with meaning by appropriating other texts (see for example Daniels, 1992; McGreevy, 1992). According to this approach, rather than regarding representations of places as reflective or distortive of the world, they should be regarded as constitutive (Barnes and Duncan, 1992; Duncan and Ley, 1993; Matless, 1992). Objects of enquiry are approached intertextually; that is, there is an attempt to show ‘the way that texts from other conceptual realms cross-cut, transform and, in turn, are transformed by the texts in question’ (Barnes and Duncan, 1992: 13).

Action-orientated

For discursive psychologists, constructions of places are not only constitutive but ‘occasioned, action-orientated, contested, and often politically consequential’ (Di Masso and Dixon, 2015: 46). Action-orientated constructions of places blame, justify, derogate, excuse, exclude and all the other things people do with words (Dixon and Durrheim, 2000: 32). Empirical research illustrates the range of social actions representations of places have been used to perform including justifying urban redevelopment (Crookes, 2017); defending fox-hunting (Wallwork and Dixon, 2004); legitimising racial exclusion (Dixon et al., 1997; Durrheim and Dixon, 2001); and opposing the opening of an asylum processing centre (Garner, 2013).

Political

One of the consequences of representations of places being employed to perform social actions is that particular representations can become culturally dominant. Constructions of places which justify colonialism or military intervention will be repeatedly reproduced in various forms for as long as it is politically expedient to do so (see Said, 1978). However, it is not simply the repeated reproduction of a representation which leads to its dominance. Effects of truth are produced discursively through the use of rhetorical devices (Barnes and Duncan, 1992; Duncan, 1993). One way the veracity of one’s account of place can be ‘proved’ is to demonstrate through detailed description that one has seen the place with one’s own eyes (Duncan, 1993). Another trope employed to convince others that one’s representation of a place is mimetic is by emphasising one’s expertise (Duncan, 1993).

However even when a particular representation becomes culturally dominant, it does not go unchallenged. The meanings surrounding a place are struggled over, and these discursive struggles are ‘just as fundamental to the activities of place construction as bricks and mortar’ (Harvey, 1996: 322). At the national level, the ‘narrative of the nation’ – the representation of the nation which gets reiterated in national histories, literature, the media and popular culture (Hall, 2006) – is contested by counter discourses which draw attention to its silences and exaggerations.

Illustrating the way place meanings are struggled over is Cohen’s (1996) study of ‘narratives of nativism’ in the Isle of Dogs area of London. Cohen interviewed Isle of Dogs residents and found their ‘inside stories’ about the Island were constructed in relation to the grand narratives of the area produced by political parties, the media, anti-racist organisations and academics. The residents dismissed negative depictions of the Island as being ill-informed and adopted a strategy of narrative impression management by telling stories which showed the area in a positive light.

Occasioned

When place talk occurs in interaction it is important to consider how speakers are orientating their talk to the interactional context. Place talk in interaction is occasioned because the way we describe a place has ‘implications for “who we are”’ (Dixon and Durrheim, 2000: 32). Illustrating the way speakers engage in identity work as they talk about places are studies by Adams (2009) and Kirkwood et al. (2013), both of which draw on interviews with forced migrants. Adams discusses how a diverse group of young asylum seekers produced remarkably similar accounts when asked to talk about how they are getting on in Britain; they talked about how their life was different to life before their arrival and they drew dramatic contrasts between Britain and their country of origin. According to Adams, these narratives can be regarded as situated and self-conscious claims to a certain identity as a child refugee. Similarly, Kirkwood et al. demonstrate that the asylum seekers and refugees they interviewed in Scotland legitimised their identities as genuine refugees and justified their presence in the host society by constructing their country of origin as a legitimate place from which to flee and Britain as an appropriate place of refuge.

What we know from previous discursive studies of place is that representations of places invest spaces with meaning by appropriating other representations; are orientated to performing particular social actions; have political consequences; and may perform identity work when produced in interaction. While other studies have tended to focus on one aspect of the discursive construction of place, this paper demonstrates how multifaceted place talk can be by exploring how constructions of Zimbabwe produced by a small number of speakers was intertextual, action-orientated, political and occasioned. More specifically, it shows that UK residents from Zimbabwe interviewed in 2011 challenged Zimbabwe’s ‘narrative of the nation’ (Hall, 2006) by producing intertextual constructions of Zimbabwe as a country in crisis; attributed blame for the crisis; and accounted for their presence in the UK.

The remainder of this introduction will describe some rhetorical strategies people employ to make attribution-orientated constructions appear factual and objective. I then provide a brief description of the approach I took to collecting and analysing the data before presenting my discursive readings of the interviewees’ talk about Zimbabwe. The conclusion will reflect on the contribution and limitations of this analysis.

Making attribution-orientated constructions appear factual and objective

Description is central to the process of attributing blame because causal relations are constructed as versions are produced (Edwards and Potter, 1992). Even direct attributional statements such as ‘it was his fault’ tend to be accompanied by detailed descriptions (Edwards and Potter, 1992) because detail works to warrant a speaker or writer as a credible witness (Potter, 1996). More commonly, people produce situated descriptions which contain attributional inferences and address issues of accountability (Edwards and Potter, 1992).

Considering description as an arena for doing attribution means attending to how the description is made to appear factual (Edwards and Potter, 1992). One technique for making descriptions appear factual, commonly employed in attribution work, is the invocation of consensus (Edwards and Potter, 1992). This is illustrated by an attribution-orientated construction of Zimbabwe which featured in The Star newspaper (see Di Manno, 2010):

The government blames a nation’s misery on international sanctions and chronic droughts. The world blames Zimbabwe’s woes on President Robert Mugabe, his Zanu-PF thugocracy, endemic corruption and the catastrophe of land redistribution.

Speakers and writers may also try to make their descriptions appear factual by emphasising their category entitlements (Potter, 1996). Working up the facticity of a description by highlighting category membership rests on the premise that certain categories of people are more knowledgeable about a specific domain simply by being a member of that category (Potter, 1996). This is illustrated by the opening words of a lecture by Dr Alex Magaisa, posted on the New Zimbabwe news website (see Magaisa, 2006):

When Zimbabweans say ‘Zvakapressa’ they are describing the terrible state of their circumstances but at the same time this Shonglish word reveals a certain creative quality about the people, which helps them to cope during hard times [. . .] Having been brought up in Zimbabwean society, I am familiar with the way in which we sometimes make fun of our own hardships.

Those who attribute blame to others do so at the risk of having their version of events dismissed as an account produced by someone who has a stake in the issue (Edwards and Potter, 1992). One way in which speakers and writers manage this risk is by producing an ostensibly disinterested factual report which makes inferences about blame (Edwards and Potter, 1992). Speakers and writers may also attempt to head off the potential criticism that they have ‘an axe to grind’ or an ingrained set of prejudices by presenting a counter interest to ‘inoculate’ against such interpretations (Potter, 1996).

Approach to data collection and analysis

The interview extracts presented in this paper are from life history interviews I conducted in England in 2011 with ten UK residents from Zimbabwe. I carried out the first interview in February 2011 and by August 2011, when I had interviewed ten men and women and had approximately 36 hours of recorded talk, I decided to focus on transcription and analysis. I stopped trying to recruit interviewees at this point as I felt the interviews were extremely rich and nuanced and I wanted to allow sufficient time for analysis.

Seven of the interviewees found out about the research via an advertisement I placed in The Zimbabwean newspaper, the New Zimbabwe news website and the Gumtree website. The advert stated, ‘I am a PhD student looking for people from Zimbabwe who are living in the UK and are willing to tell me the story of their life’. Two interviewees were identified through contacts of my PhD supervisor, and one was the spouse of another interviewee. Since making generalisations about Zimbabweans in the UK was never the aim of this research I did not have a carefully designed sampling strategy. The only condition for participation in the research was that the person lived in the UK and self-identified as being from Zimbabwe. My self-selected ‘sample’ included six men and four women who ranged in age from early 20s to late 70s. They had lived in the UK for varying lengths of time between 5 and 30 years.

Following Rosenthal (2007), I began each interview with a request for the interviewee to tell me the story of their life from whichever point they would like to begin and refrained from interrupting with follow-up questions. Once the interviewee indicated that his/her story was complete, I asked narrative-generating questions exploring themes already discussed (internal narrative questions) such as, ‘So if we could go back to when you lived in Zimbabwe, what are your memories of living there?’ I also asked questions which explored areas of interest not mentioned by the interviewee (external narrative questions) such as, ‘When you arrived in Britain was it how you imagined it to be?’ I met four of the interviewees on more than one occasion as they did not complete the story of their life the first time we met or there was not enough time for me to ask internal and external narrative questions.

Analytic approach

The interviews were transcribed verbatim but with some details that can convey additional meaning in verbal exchanges such as laughter and pauses (see endnote one for transcription notation). I also included my back-channelling responses in square brackets so that my role as a co-constructor of the talk (Gardner, 2001) could be considered. The level of interactional detail included on the transcripts was deemed sufficient for the type of analysis conducted; it reflects my interest in the words spoken during the course of an interaction rather than the interaction itself, in which case it would have been necessary to use a more detailed system of transcription.

My analytic approach drew on the work of discursive psychologists, particularly those who have developed what’s known as the synthetic approach to discourse analysis or critical discursive psychology (see Edley, 2001; Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Potter et al., 1990; Wetherell, 1998; Wetherell and Edley, 1999; Wetherell and Potter, 1992). While it is possible to align particular discourse analytic approaches with a specific intellectual heritage, most approaches are the result of a productive encounter between structural and pragmatic theories of language (Angermuller et al., 2014). Perhaps none more so than the synthetic/critical discursive psychology approach which combines insights from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis with post-structuralism (see Edley, 2001; Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Potter et al., 1990; Wetherell, 1998; Wetherell and Edley, 1999; Wetherell and Potter, 1992). For Potter et al. (1990), linguistic practice offers a sediment of terms, narrative forms and metaphors from which verbal and textual accounts are assembled. Such verbal and textual accounts are constitutive and may perform context-specific actions. In a later article, Wetherell (1998) argues that while the synthetic approach takes inspiration from ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and post-structuralism, it also departs from them as post-structuralists rarely examine actual social interaction and conversation analysts seldom raise they eyes from the next turn in the conversation. According to Wetherell, Laclau’s (1993) argument that objects, social agents, institutions and structures emerge from unceasing linguistic and non-linguistic meaning-making processes provides a good grounding for analysis. However, post-structuralists such as Laclau are criticised for providing an inadequate explanation for the take up of subject positions in talk. Commensurate with conversation analysts, Wetherell emphasises the highly occasioned and situated nature in which people take up subject positions. Underpinning my analysis was the theoretical assumption that discourses determine what it is possible to think, say and be within a particular historical juncture (Foucault, 1972), but the way in which people construct phenomena and position themselves as subjects in talk is shaped by the interactional context (Wetherell, 1998; Wetherell and Edley, 1999).

Analysis and discussion

Intertextual, action-orientated and political constructions of Zimbabwe

This section explores how the men and women I interviewed produced constructions of Zimbabwe as a country in crisis which challenged the ‘narrative of the nation’ (Hall, 2006) and attributed blame for the crisis. I will start by describing the two prevailing constructions of Zimbabwe at the time the interviews were conducted. When exploring how something is discursively constructed, it is helpful to see what linguistic resources are available for the construction of that phenomenon (Edley, 2001). As Edley (2001: 190) points out, a language culture may provide a range of ways of talking about a particular phenomenon, some of which are culturally dominant, so seeing what constructions are ‘on offer’ provides a sense of what choices speakers or writers are making.

Texts in the public realm produced by a range of actors including journalists, academics, politicians and non-governmental organisations up to, and during the period I conducted the interviews (February 2011–August 2011) were drawn upon to identify the meanings that had become invested in Zimbabwe.

Constructions of Zimbabwe as a country in crisis

Two competing constructions of Zimbabwe existed during the period I conducted the interviews: Zimbabwe as a country in crisis and Zimbabwe as a state under threat from Western imperialism. The latter can be thought of as a ‘narrative of the nation’ (Hall, 2006) while the former can be regarded as a counter narrative. According to Hall (2006: 613), a narrative of the nation is told and re-told in national histories, the media and popular culture and gives meaning to the nation by providing ‘a set of stories, images, landscapes, scenarios, historical events, national symbols, and rituals which stand for, or represent, the shared experiences, sorrows, and triumphs and disasters’.

Constructions of Zimbabwe as a country in crisis, which were produced by political opponents of the ruling party in Zimbabwe, journalists, non-governmental organisations and academics, dated the start of the crisis to the beginning of the 21st century (see for example Hammar and Raftopoulos, 2003; Moyo, 2011; Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Muzondidya, 2011). Narratives of crisis and decline characterised Zimbabwe as a country with a failing economy, widespread corruption and an absence of civil liberties (see for example Chogugudza, 2006; Crush and Tervera, 2010; Hammar and Raftopoulos, 2003; Human Rights Watch, 2009; Meldrum, 2007; Peta, 2002). The president, Robert Mugabe, and the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), were identified as largely, if not entirely responsible for the country’s economic decline. Indeed, this focus on ‘internal dynamics’ represented one of the main positions in a debate concerning who was to blame for Zimbabwe’s crisis (Freeman, 2014). Accounts which placed responsibility for Zimbabwe’s ‘collapse’ squarely on the shoulders of President Mugabe pointed to his mismanagement, thirst for power and greed (see Clemens and Moss, 2005; Compagnon, 2010; Lessing, 2003; Magaisa, 2006; Meredith, 2002; Mlambo, 2003; Nyathi, 2005; Power, 2003; Rotberg, 2000). Others sought to move beyond ‘Mugabe-centric’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2012) explanations for the crisis by discussing its multiple internal, external, historical and contemporary causes (see Bourne, 2011; Hammar and Raftopoulos, 2003; Mlambo and Raftopoulos, 2010; Moore, 2003; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2012).

Constructions of Zimbabwe as a state under threat from Western imperialism

An alternative explanation for the economic decline in Zimbabwe is that it was caused primarily by Western powers (Freeman, 2005). The ZANU-PF government and their supporters identified being persuaded to adopt structural adjustment policies and the imposition of arms embargos, travel bans and financial sanctions by countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom as the principal cause of Zimbabwe’s declining fortunes (Freeman, 2005). Zimbabwe was constructed as a state under threat from Western imperialism and economic sanctions were identified as one the main instruments of neo-liberal regime change (Freeman, 2005). Around the start of the 21st century, the ZANU-PF government championed the ‘Third Chimurenga’, the third struggle against imperialism in Zimbabwe after the uprisings against colonialists from 1896 to 1897, and the liberation war in the 1960s and 1970s:

Remember Zimbabwe is under attack; our sovereignty is under fire from the very same imperialist forces which took it away more than a century ago (Mugabe, 2001: 71).

While the invocation of past glories is a common feature of nationalism which aims to produce a unified culture (Hall, 1995), the excavation of liberation war memories and anti-colonial rhetoric around the start of the 21st century is thought to be linked to growing support for the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), at that time (Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Willems, 2009). By constructing Zimbabwe as once again under attack from imperialists, ZANU-PF could argue that the only way the country will remain in safe hands is if Zimbabweans vote for the party that played a central role in its liberation in the past, and will continue to struggle against imperialist interference and aggression in the future:

ZANU-PF is the true fighter for the people and their rights, and the MDC uphold the interests of imperialists and colonialists thereby working against the people and their rights (President Mugabe quoted in Zimbabwe Mail, 2010).

The ZANU-PF government and their supporters have delegitimised the MDC party by constructing it as a party without liberation war credentials (Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Willems, 2009; Willems, 2005) and as an agent of Western imperialists (Freeman, 2005).

Attribution-orientated constructions of Zimbabwe

The first extract comes from an interview with Fred who constructed Zimbabwe as a country which has deteriorated over the years and identified President Mugabe as responsible for this:

F: Things are not good anymore [L: Mm] we thought that with the coming in of independence [L: Mhm]. . …Mugabe declared that he would keep everything as it was or it would get better, he started free education for everybody [L: Mhm] and that is why eventually we had the best, our Zimbabwe had the most educated people than any other country in Africa [. . .] But he couldn’t afford free education [L: No] so eventually he made a U-turn because he couldn’t afford it [L: No]. . .Free medical attention, you can’t do that [L: No] [. . .] But ah. . . . poor man, he lost his vision [L: Mm]. Then of course as you know Lord Acton’s statement, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely [. . .] These people are corrupted by power.¹

This attribution-orientated construction of Zimbabwe features an attempt at ‘stake inoculation’ (Potter, 1996). Before attributing ‘things [not being] good anymore’ to President Mugabe’s leadership, Fred tries to defend himself against the potential accusation that he always expected the country to deteriorate when Mugabe came to power in 1980 immediately after Zimbabwe was granted independence by stating, ‘we thought that with the coming in of independence’. Fred reproduces one of the main explanations for the crisis in Zimbabwe (Freeman, 2005), however he presents Mugabe in a more favourable light than many by suggesting that he came to power with the intention of delivering on his promise that ‘he would keep everything as it was or it would get better’ but over the years he ‘lost his vision’ and became ‘corrupted by power’. Zimbabwe is constructed as a country which was full of promise when it got independence, but due to the failings of Mugabe and his party soon began to deteriorate. A review of academic and journalistic accounts of the crisis in Zimbabwe by Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2012) suggests that this was a common sentiment. According to Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2012: 316), ‘Mugabe emerges in most of the recent literature as this larger-than-life political figure who was midwife to the birth of the nation before becoming its undertaker’.

A narrative of crisis and decline in which ZANU-PF features as the key protagonist was also produced by Jacob:

J: when we gained independence in 1980 [L: Mhm] I was only very young [L: Mhm] but still things were good for a time right [L: Mhm] when they [ZANU-PF] took over, things were good [L: Yeah]. Then, problems started, what they did was, they wanted to give these ex-combatants who were complaining that they fought the war and got nothing [L: Mhm] so there were these gratuities of fifty thousand [L: Mhm] dollars [. . .] They didn’t budget for this money, they just gave them [L: Yep]. There the economy, it just went down on its knees straight away [L: So suddenly mmm]. It affected everybody.

Like others before him (see for example Bond and Manyanya, 2003; Taylor and Williams, 2002), Jacob identifies the government’s ill-conceived decision to pay gratuities to ex-combatants as the catalyst of Zimbabwe’s economic decline. To convey how sudden and dramatic the economic collapse was he uses the metaphor of the economy going ‘down on its knees’. Others have employed the terms ‘plunge’ (Bond and Manyanya, 2003; Nyathi, 2005) and ‘free fall’ (Taylor and Williams, 2002) with similar effect.

The government’s decision to pay gratuities to war veterans was also singled out by Steve as the precipitating cause of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis:

S: the first. .serious. . .warning shot I suppose you’d like to call it that happened to us was in 19, in late ’97 [L: Mhm] um, its what’s known in Zimbabwe as Black Friday [L: Mhm] happened in which the currency collapsed overnight, the stock exchange was devalued by half and this all resulted because the government. . .made a promise to pay out gratuities and pensions [L: Mmm] to people who had said they had fought in the war of liberation. [. . .] So the government committed to pay and the country couldn’t afford it and that’s what caused this economic collapse.

Detailed description is used by Steve to work up the facticity of his attribution-orientated construction of Zimbabwe. The statement ‘its what’s known in Zimbabwe as Black Friday’, in addition to details such as the extent to which the stock exchange devalued (half) and the year and time of year this happened (late ’97), work to make his account of what caused the economic collapse seem believable by warranting him as a plausible witness.

Tsungi also reproduced prevailing constructions of the economic crisis in Zimbabwe as the responsibility of the government:

T: the government blamed the economic um monetary fund IMF for some. .IMF. . you know prescription that they had been given [L: Mm] but then, you see, in Zimbabwe we didn’t have ignorant politicians [. . .] half of them having had you know gone to Harvard [L: Mm] Oxford

[L: Oxford mm] where you have them with a string of you know seven degrees, masters, PhDs. They were not naïve [L: No] they were not ignorant, but when they spoke to the people, [L: Mm] they said, ‘Oh you know it’s this IMF prescription, you know see we’ve been forced into this,’ and those of us who who you know could think were saying, ‘Wait a minute

[L: Mm]. . .you guys, the calibre of you men [L: Yeah], this lot of you couldn’t have been hoodwinked [L: No] by someone who flew in from London and said, ‘This is right for you.’ [. . .] You’re the ones that went and got you know borrowed this money [L: Mm] and you’ve embezzled the money.

In the process of identifying the government of Zimbabwe as culpable for the country’s economic decline, Tsungi undermines an explanation for the crisis produced by the ruling party and their supporters (Freeman, 2014): the International Monetary Fund forced the government to borrow money. She does so by constructing politicians in Zimbabwe as far from naïve. Tsungi works up the credibility of this counter argument by suggesting that this is not merely her view but the collective view of those who can think critically (‘those of us who who you know could think’).

A narrative of crisis and decline in which President Mugabe features as the principal architect of the country’s crisis was also produced by Patson:

P: the development that Mugabe did is, when we got the independence, everything went on well because there was so much money injected [L: Mhm] into the country by the donors, by other countries because we just got our independence but how was the money used and all these things? [L: Mhm] Let alone in the early 1990s when ESAP [L: Mhm] was put in place, the Economic and Structural Adjustment Programme in 1991 was put in place in Zimbabwe, it meant that um um more companies were going to be privatised [L: Mhm] closed down and all these things and this angered so many people which led to the rise of the workers [. . .] But God knows. . …the formation of the MDC, the MDC was formed [L: Mmm] on the backdrop that they wanted to help the people, and they were union, um they were led by the people [. . .] So to us as a country, to us as a country MDC was seen to be [L: Mhm] a saviour against what was happening in Zimbabwe from 1994 when the effects of ESAP were found.

Patson works up the facticity of his version of events by implying that there is consensus in Zimbabwe regarding who is to blame for the crisis. He does so by suggesting that when the MDC party was formed, all Zimbabweans were hopeful that it would save them from the consequences of ill-conceived economic policies (‘to us as a country MDC was seen to be a saviour against what was happening in Zimbabwe’). His narrative continues as follows:

P: Come 2000, Mugabe saw that he has lost his grip on the people. 1999 the people had started complaining about the land [L: Mhm] saying, ‘We got the independence, you signed the Lancaster House Constitution [L: Mhm] saying we need the land and we were given the time period to give the land back to the people but the land has not been given back to the people.’ [. . .] he saw that people were angered because they didn’t have the land, he let those people loose into the farms, destroying the infrastructure [. . .] So from there it made it hard for the general population to get the food and all those things and it was not the sanctions [L: Mm], it was not the sanctions.

By framing President Mugabe’s refusal to stop people occupying commercial farms at the start of the 21st century as a desperate attempt to regain his ‘grip on the people’, Patson reproduces a well-established narrative concerning the land occupations (Freeman, 2005, 2014). According to this version of events, in the context of the government’s defeat in the February 2000 constitutional referendum, Mugabe presided over commercial farms being occupied and seized by people claiming the land was rightfully theirs (see for example Blair, 2002; Godwin, 2006; Meredith, 2002; Mlambo, 2003; Wiles, 2005; Younge, 2000). This narrative contrasts starkly with the President’s portrayal of the land occupations as peaceful demonstrations by ex-combatants ‘demonstrating their greatest disappointment that there was this No vote’ (Robert Mugabe quoted in Blair, 2002: 75).

Patson goes on to state that as a consequence of the farm occupations, the general population found it hard to get food. At this point he undermines an alternative explanation for shortages in Zimbabwe used by the ruling party and its supporters: the imposition of economic sanctions on Zimbabwe (Freeman, 2005, 2014). The extent to which the crisis in Zimbabwe was attributable to economic sanctions and ‘the West’ was an extremely pertinent question during the period in which I conducted the interviews (February-August 2011) as the government launched the National Anti-Sanctions Petition in March 2011 demanding an end to ‘illegal economic sanctions’ with a target of obtaining at least 2,000,000 signatures (see Bell, 2011; Razemba, 2011). Thus, by stating that ‘it was not the sanctions’, Patson is taking up a particular position in the debate concerning who is responsible for Zimbabwe’s economic crisis.

Occasioned constructions of Zimbabwe

Mary produced a construction of Zimbabwe which is action-orientated and occasioned as it accounts for her decision to leave Zimbabwe and continue to live in Britain:

M: From 1980 to about 19. . . .I can say. . .’85, ’86 things were quite OK [L: OK] we were happy but then our prime minister Mugabe was not, he was greedy [L: Yeah], he wanted everything for himself and his party [L: Mhm] and problems started again [L: Mhm]. So we have a lot of problems because of greediness actually [L: Mhm]. And this is the reason why most of us we are here now. We ran away from Mugabe because if you don’t support his party then you are in trouble [L: Mm] and we’re not supporting him [L: Mm] because we didn’t like the way he was running things.

Mary constructs a causal chain from Mugabe’s greed, to the deterioration of the country, to a lack of support for Mugabe and his party, to the forced migration of those who fear/ suffer persecution because they do not support the ruling party. This narrative of crisis in Zimbabwe not only attributes blame for the county’s deterioration, but accounts for the settlement of Zimbabweans in the UK.

Mary’s husband Fred also produced a construction of Zimbabwe which accounted for his presence in the UK:

F: I can’t stand what has happened to Zimbabwe [. . .] I just can’t stay in such a country

[L: Mm], no. I don’t mind living in South Africa [L: Mhm]. . .because that’s. .in other words if there was a democratic Zimbabwe [L: Mhm] and it all you know went back to the way it was 20 years ago it would have been a different story [L: Mm] all together. I don’t think my wife would have come here [L: No], no. But now it’s a question of . . . .the situation is so bad

[L: Mmm] that ah. . . .I prefer it here [L: Yeah]. It can be cold, it can be icy [L: Mhm] but I would rather be here than go to Zimbabwe [. . .] last time I went back home close relatives would say, ‘You are better off where you are [L: Mmm]. Uncle you are better off there because when you come here you will die [L: Mm]. There’s no food, there’s no medicine’ [L: No]. But then I turn round and say, ‘But how come you are around?’ And they say, ‘Oh we are used to it, used to the system’ [L: Yeah]. But I wouldn’t get used to it [L: No]. I don’t think I would be alive if I stayed in Zimbabwe by now because I am an open critique [L: Mhm] of the whole system you know.

Fred suggests that it was not only his emotional response to what happened to Zimbabwe which prompted his departure and influences his decision to remain in the UK; through a combination of direct statements (‘I don’t think I would be alive if I stayed in Zimbabwe’) and the reported words of others (‘when you come here you will die’), he suggests that leaving Zimbabwe and living in the UK was/is a matter of survival. Indeed, by stating that he and his wife would not have left if ‘there was a democratic Zimbabwe’, he simultaneously positions himself as a forced migrant and identifies misgovernance as the main reason for his departure.

A further example of how a speaker may construct their former place of residence in a way which accounts for their departure and settlement elsewhere comes from an interview with Steve:

S: I thought when I first came here. . .I gave myself a limit [. . .] I thought, ‘I’m going there for five years [L: Mhm]. .I want British citizenship [L: Mhm] and I want the protection of a Western country’ [. . .] I actually did think the status quo would have changed within five years judging by what I had seen [L: Mhm] but I didn’t realise the lengths [L: No] and the extent they would go to hold on to power [. . .] So my five years is stretched [laughing] a little longer.

By stating that he came to the UK because he wanted the protection of a Western country and continues to live here because the political situation in Zimbabwe has not changed, Steve constructs Zimbabwe as an unsafe place and accounts for his presence in Britain.

Conclusion

Drawing on extracts from life history interviews with UK residents from Zimbabwe, this paper illustrates the way places are constructed through linguistic practice and how such constructions are intertextual, action-orientated, political and occasioned. I started by exploring the way in which the interviews were a site for the production of constructions of Zimbabwe as a country in crisis which were political and action-orientated in that they contested the ‘narrative of the nation’ (Hall, 2006) and assigned blame for the crisis to President Mugabe and the ruling party. I discussed how the interviewees employed a range of rhetorical devices to make their attribution-orientated constructions of Zimbabwe appear less like artful constructions and more like accurate descriptions, namely, stake inoculation; producing detailed descriptions which work to warrant the speaker as a plausible witness; and suggesting there is consensus regarding who is to blame for Zimbabwe’s economic decline. By situating these attribution-orientated constructions of Zimbabwe within public debates concerning who is responsible for the crisis, I also demonstrate that the constructions are intertextual.

The second part of my discussion focused on how the men and women I interviewed produced representations of Zimbabwe as a country in crisis which were occasioned in that they accounted for their presence in the UK. Like forced migrants in previous studies (see Adams, 2009; Kirkwood et al., 2013), the participants in this study justified their settlement in Britain by constructing their country of origin as an unsafe place.

This paper explores multiple facets of the discursive construction of place as opposed to focusing, as other studies have done, on one of these facets. Wallwork and Dixon (2004: 36) argue that a greater cross-fertilisation of work in discursive psychology and cultural geography might lead to a deeper understanding of the role of place meanings in constructing and reconstructing identities. I would argue that this paper, which builds on the work of cultural geographers and discursive psychologists by exploring the way a small number of speakers produced intertextual, action-orientated, political and occasioned constructions of a particular place, develops an appreciation of how rich and nuanced place talk can be.

Despite exploring multiple dimensions of the discursive construction of place in talk, by focusing solely on linguistic practice this study does not improve our understanding of how places are made via linguistic and material practice. Illustrating the way research can explore the construction of place via both linguistic and material practice are studies by Buizer and Turnhout (2011) and Di Masso and Dixon (2015), both of which focus on attempts to protect an area from urban redevelopment. Buizer and Turnhout show how Dutch and Belgian citizens constructed an area called Grensschap as a valuable place not only through talk and text, but by installing art and information signs that articulated certain characteristics and values of the area. Similarly, Di Masso and Dixon explore how residents imbued an area in Barcelona earmarked for redevelopment with meaning via linguistic, embodied and material practices such as planting a fir tree to give the space ‘life’ as a green environment for local people. The discursive approach to place would be advanced by further empirical studies which illustrate how places are constructed via linguistic and material practices.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by an Economic and Social Research Council 1+3 studentship (ES/G015007/1).

Notes

Author biography

Laura Hall completed her PhD at City, University of London in 2016. Her thesis explored how life history interviews with UK residents from Zimbabwe were a site for the discursive construction of subjects, places and relationships to places. As a postgraduate student Laura conducted qualitative research on Eritrean refugees’ journeys to the UK and legal practitioners’ views on the impact of the New Asylum Model and changes to legal aid on Britain’s asylum determination process. More recently, whilst working in the Department of Primary Care and Population Health at University College London, she contributed to a qualitative study exploring how the internet is used and discussed in GP consultations.

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