From “bush” to “farm”: Emplacement and displacement in contemporary white Zimbabwean narratives

Abstract

In this article we discuss how places of belonging are imagined in relatively recent white Zimbabwean narratives dealing with issues of land, landscape, and belonging. Two white Zimbabwean narratives, Peter Rimmer's Cry of the Fish Eagle (1993) and Douglas Rogers' The Last Resort (2009), are read for the ways in which the paradoxically imagined spaces of the "bush" and the "farm" can be seen to enable, in alternate forms, exigent accommodations with place under different historical and political circumstances. In Cry of the Fish Eagle, which preceded Zimbabwe's land reform process of the 2000s, "bush" is a privileged category by virtue of its supra-national allowance of a claim to white belonging in "Africa" at large. In The Last Resort, on the other hand, the "bush" is a derelict wilderness rescued by the ingenuity of white subjects, who create "farms" of splendid regenerative capacity in an effort to purchase belonging in the Zimbabwean nation-state.

Home and belonging in Irene Sabatini’s The Boy Next Door and Andrea Eames’ The Cry of the Go-Away Bird

“…As it turns out, only Mark Cooper surrenders his British and South African passports. In their analysis of Douglas Rogers’ memoir, The Last Resort , Cuthbeth Tagwirei and Leon de Kock observe that “[t]o Rogers, white farmers defended their farms as symbolic acts to safeguard their Zimbabwean citizenship” (2015: 491). Cooper’s surrendering of his British and South African passports and his fatal defence of his farm can and should be understood this way.…”

“…In doing so, I add to the voices of those who have tackled the questions of whiteness and belonging in Southern Africa by focusing on recent narratives about white people’s experiences in postcolonial Zimbabwe, the country’s economic decline under the dictatorial reign of Robert Mugabe, and the consequences of the fast-track land reform programme for white farmers. While most of these voices have mainly explored white narratives, especially memoirs by such authors as Peter Godwin, Douglas Rogers, Cheryl Clary, Alexandra Fuller, Wendy Kann, Lauren St John, Lauren Liebenberg, Richard Wiles, Erick Harrison, Catherine Buckle and Bruce Vanbuskirk, among others (see Musanga, 2015; Tagwirei and de Kock, 2015; Law, 2016; Pilossof, 2009; Hove, 2009; Da Silva, 2005, 2011; Harris, 2005), my interest is in fictional works that deal with a historical moment associated with white suffering and victimhood in Zimbabwe to see how they bring forth issues of whiteness, home, and belonging. The two fictional works analysed here allow us to see how urban whites and those in farming communities respond to the discourse on white unbelonging.…”