Journal of Hate Studies

The Love and Hate Relationship of Colonial Heritage: Exploring Changes of the Heritage Archive in Zimbabwe

Njabulo Chipangura, University of Wiwatersrand South AfricaFollow

Abstract

This article present some of the main debates circling around the conservation of colonial heritage in Zimbabwe and the contestations that undergird its protection because of a shift in understandings of the heritage archive, the former British colony’s national monuments register, which is constituted by a list of declared and protected heritage sites. In the conventional archive, archivability is “the product of a judgement, the result of the exercise of a specific power and authority, which involves placing certain documents in an archive at the same time as others are discarded” (Mbembe, 2002, p. 2), and so it is unsurprising that what should be kept or discarded is often contested. In Zimbabwe’s heritage archive, conservation and protection is selectively offered to liberation war heritage while colonial heritage has been marginalised, discarded, and left to deteriorate. The Southern African nation’s heritage archive is often constructed to suit the needs of the ruling government and veterans of Zimbabwe’s War of Liberation (1964-1979), and colonial heritage has been vandalised and destroyed without considering that it can be utilised for the purpose of a critical heritage practice so that questions about the experience of colonialism in Zimbabwe can be answered using colonial heritage as a key reference point.

Recommended Citation

Chipangura, Njabulo (2016) "The Love and Hate Relationship of Colonial Heritage: Exploring Changes of the Heritage Archive in Zimbabwe," Journal of Hate Studies: Vol. 13: Iss. 1, Article 4.
DOI: 10.33972/jhs.133
Available at: https://repository.gonzaga.edu/jhs/vol13/iss1/4