Orality and Cultural Indentities in Zimbabwe

This book traces how black people's culture - ideas, beliefs and struggles - has expressed itself through song theatre, poetry, film, TV, and other oral cultural modes. It assesses to what extent orality has been subverted to serve dominant colonial and conservative culture, and conversely, the role it has played in resisting these interests. Some individual studies are on: oral forms in Ndebele's poetry; orality in Shona religious rituals; theatre in post-independence Zimbabwe; popular songs and social realities in Africa and images of black women in these songs; the development of unwritten ethical and moral values; film making in Zimbabwe; TV representation of blacks in post-independence Zimbabwe; and the role of orature in the nationalist struggle in Zimbabwe.