(Re)constructions of the Self and the Nation in Selected Auto/biographies of South African and Zimbabwean Women
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis examines and interrogates auto/biographies of six African women in the ways in which their selves and the nation are constructed. The selected autobiographies and biographies are largely by and about African women with some measure of political power and or relatively successful career. The study employed Smith and Watson’s (2001) view that autobiography is self-life writing which is porous in nature, in that it accommodates various narratives. Life narrative genre is fundamental in the literary body to interpret social, cultural and political constructions of South African and Zimbabwean identities. The study supports the notion that the self emerges from its gendered private space into the public domain, inadvertently transforms autobiography to protest writing, as well as a political project. The study explored how auto/biographies enable the recovery of women’s voices silenced by history and the specific forms of identities of selves and nation-hoods that they depict. To achieve that, the study employed a panoply of theories which include autobiography, postcolonial, womanist and feminist theories to argue that the life narratives by women are a quest for gender equity as negotiated within the two specific postcolonial nation states of South Africa and Zimbabwe. The study disclosed that women as writers have to negotiate the multiple binds of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and class. The study concludes that it is not possible to deploy a singular self to tell a story but rather to include the lived experience of others differently positioned provides a holistic view of the predicaments and prevailing situation of the society. The study further determines that nationalism is a gendered discourse and that violence against women and resistance are shaped by specific cultural contexts and ideological forces. This research adds value to the existing corpus of knowledge in the field. It focuses on recent auto/biographies by Southern African women as t…
abstract: This thesis examines and interrogates auto/biographies of six African women in the ways in which their selves and the nation are constructed. The selected autobiographies and biographies are largely by and about African women with some measure of political power and or relatively successful career. The study employed Smith and Watson’s (2001) view that autobiography is self-life writing which is porous in nature, in that it accommodates various narratives. Life narrative genre is fundamental in the literary body to interpret social, cultural and political constructions of South African and Zimbabwean identities. The study supports the notion that the self emerges from its gendered private space into the public domain, inadvertently transforms autobiography to protest writing, as well as a political project. The study explored how auto/biographies enable the recovery of women’s voices silenced by history and the specific forms of identities of selves and nation-hoods that they depict. To achieve that, the study employed a panoply of theories which include autobiography, postcolonial, womanist and feminist theories to argue that the life narratives by women are a quest for gender equity as negotiated within the two specific postcolonial nation states of South Africa and Zimbabwe. The study disclosed that women as writers have to negotiate the multiple binds of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and class. The study concludes that it is not possible to deploy a singular self to tell a story but rather to include the lived experience of others differently positioned provides a holistic view of the predicaments and prevailing situation of the society. The study further determines that nationalism is a gendered discourse and that violence against women and resistance are shaped by specific cultural contexts and ideological forces. This research adds value to the existing corpus of knowledge in the field. It focuses on recent auto/biographies by Southern African women as t…
author: Mujakachi, Mercy Precious
language: en
keywords: Auto/biography, Memoir, Nation, Postcolonial, Womanist
date published: 2021-11-19
date modified: 2026-07-27T21:57:16Z
provider: University of Venda
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Venda

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11602/1768