Participatory art for navigating political capabilities and aspirations among rural youth in Zimbabwe

Abstract

While exploring the everyday experiences of Tonga youth, this paper draws on a participatory graffiti-on-board project in Binga, a rural community in Zimbabwe. Focus is placed on what shapes and drives youth aspirations in precarious contexts marked by unemployment and poverty. Using graffiti to create participatory and artistic engagements, the research aims to stretch the limited boundaries of social and political space available to the youth for discussing issues that concern their development pathways and livelihoods. The article presents everyday narratives that impact on Tonga youths' aspirations, endeavouring to create a space where they can visualise their prospective futures. Additionally, exhibition spaces are seen as sites for the construction of a collective voice and political capabilities for the youth. We argue that aspirations among disadvantaged youth evidence the broader geopolitical conflict that exists in marginalised communities in Southern Africa. A lack of spaces to construct political voice among the youth curtails their capabilities and agency to choose from existing development opportunities in an uncertain future. We discuss the potential role of participatory art in relation to this in providing spaces for political voice, unsettling established power dynamics and developing a collective, unified voice that might influence governance processes in fragile contexts.

Citizen Voice and the Arts: Opportunities and Challenges for Citizen–Policy Engagement on Environmental Issues in Sahelian West Africa

“…Activities framed as participatory art research may link more explicitly to deliberation spaces than these arts-framed events do. Mkwananzi, Cin and Marovah (2021) report the experience of a group of Zimbabwean youths who were prompted by researchers to make graffiti art about their aspirations. They In these latter examples there are multiple levels of co-creation -dialogue between viewers, but also among a group of artistic creators, or between creators and viewers, who are sometimes policy actors (Flinders and Cunningham 2014), and sometimes actual deliberation on a concrete problem to be solved (Pässilä, Oikarinen and Kallio 2013).…”

“…This work is framed more as an advocacy than a research activity. Wilfred Upkong's work Blazing Century, while framed as socially engaged or relational art, achieves similar objectives as thatMkwananzi et al (2021) report, comprising a suite of video, photographic, sculpture, and performance pieces relating to the interaction of environmental destruction and socio-political turmoil in the Niger Delta. Blazing Century employs a specific striking visual aesthetic which captures and communicates to viewers, prompting reflection and dialogue.…”