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Beyond Colonial Boundaries: Reimagining the Rozvi through Landscapes, Identities and Indigenous Epistemologies

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  • Lesley Hatipone Machiridza

    (Alexander Von Humboldt Post-Doctoral Fellow, Institute of African Studies and Egyptology, University of Cologne Albertus-Magnus-Platz, D-50923 Cologne, Germany
    Department of Development Studies, History and Archaeology, Simon Muzenda School of Arts, Culture and Heritage Great Zimbabwe University, Masvingo P.O. Box 1235, Zimbabwe)

  • Russell Kapumha

    (School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3AZ, UK)

Abstract

The land, ‘things’/objects, and memory in the form of narratives and metaphors are intricately bound together. They all constitute the iconography of a shared set of ideas, beliefs, feelings, values, practices, and performances that objectify collective identities. Respectively, these complex entangled tangible and spiritual/invisible indices of identities situated in places deserve special archaeological devotion. However, since African archaeology and history remains trapped in Eurocentric colonial metanarratives, indigenous epistemologies and ontologies have somehow remained on the margins of knowledge production processes. This deliberate erasure and silencing continues to impede archaeology’s capacity to explore hidden meanings and values that people imbue to places and landscapes through time. Owing to this setback, multiple precolonial group identities in parts of Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana, and Mozambique such as Torwa, Twamamba, Rozvi, Singo, and Venda, among others, remain vague and subjectively tied to the archaeology of Butua/Torwa (AD 1400–1644) and Rozvi (AD 1685–1830) state systems. The failure to read the landscape as both a repository of memory and an agent for collective identities continues to compound our archaeological challenges. Against this background, Rozvi oral narratives and the Insiza cluster Khami-phase sites in southwestern Zimbabwe are subjected to renewed scrutiny. Following a critical review of colonial archives and Rozvi traditions, it turned out that instead of contradicting ‘science’, oral traditions actually amplify our reading of the archaeological record, only if handled properly.

Suggested Citation

  • Lesley Hatipone Machiridza & Russell Kapumha, 2023. "Beyond Colonial Boundaries: Reimagining the Rozvi through Landscapes, Identities and Indigenous Epistemologies," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-21, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2023:i:8:p:1625-:d:1219945
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Munyaradzi Mawere, 2015. "Indigenous Knowledge and Public Education in Sub-Saharan Africa," Africa Spectrum, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 50(2), pages 57-71.
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