Politically induced economic precarity, syncretism and female representations in Chigumadzi’s Sweet Medicine

abstract

Butler’s notion of precarity is useful in thinking through the situations of Panashe Chigumadzi’s representation of female characters in the novel Sweet Medicine. For Butler, precarity designates a politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support more than others. Tsitsi, the female protagonist, is a staunch Catholic whose transition into adulthood coincides with the politically triggered catastrophic collapse of the Zimbabwean economy. Her rigid sensibilities have been shaped by a conservative religious single mother who believes that any sort of religious indiscretion is the work of the devil. On the other hand, Chiedza, Tsitsi’s friend, is a maverick. However, when the Zimbabwean economy unravels, both Tsitsi and Chiedza find that economic precariousness demands innovative syncretism. Utilising Butler’s further explication of precarity as the differential distribution of precariousness, the review explores the ways in which these three women and others negotiate their gendered lives in dealing with economic, emotional and psychological turmoil in one of the most spectacularly collapsed African economies.

keywords:

• female representations
• economic precarity
• religion
• syncretism
• Panashe Chigumadzi

Notes

1. The misfortunes and tragedies that befell some Zimbabweans during the height of the country’s inflation are well-documented. For example, a report in 2012 stated: “Three out of 10 Zimbabwean women are gang-raped while trying to illegally cross the border into South Africa through undesignated entry points along the Limpopo River” (‘3 in 10 female border jumpers gang raped’, Bulawayo 24 News, 20 November 2012). See: http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-22932.html, site accessed 11 July 2016.

2. Pilossof (2011) observes that the Zimbabwean Shona word jambanja is “used to encompass a range of violent and angry confrontations on the land”. In Zimbabwe, these vicious conflicts were often state-sponsored.

3. A fruit cordial.

4. Shona word for a market, usually for fresh produce.

5. Chiedza’s response to economic precarity was by no means a normative one for the majority of female Zimbabweans. Many turned to various forms of the informal market which also increasingly became sites of oppressive hegemonic political control.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Isaac Ndlovu

ISAAC NDLOVU is a senior lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Venda, South Africa. His recent publications include: ‘Ambivalence of representation: African crises, migration and citizenship in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names’, in African Identities, 2015 and ‘Satire, Children, and Traumatic Violence: The Case of Ahmadou Kourouma and Uwen Akpan’, in Matatu, 2014.