Time: 2:30pm - 4:00pm EST

Location: Resource Centre (321 York Lanes)

York University 

4700 Keele Street 

Toronto, ON | M3J 1P3 

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/tubman-talks-with-ruth-murambadoro-tickets-453877388487.

[Re]imagining A Gendered History of Zimbabwe

Presenter: Ruth Murambadoro

Affiliation: Centre for Feminist Research and Harriet Tubman Institute, York University, Canada

Abstract: Zimbabwe’s political trajectory over the past four decades has been ravaged by ruptures of violence with grave consequences for women. Political figures involved in efforts to resolve the conflict are mostly men, and their deliberations have shaped the political landscape as a men’s field. Equally, writings on Zimbabwe’s violent history have silenced women’s voices and participation in the political project, an error that erases the traumas embodied by this constituency. In [re]imagining the gendered history of Zimbabwe, this paper posits the question: How do Zimbabwean women through social movements identify, relate, and imagine their being as survivors in a repressive state? Working closely with women movements in Zimbabwe to curate their histories, the paper draws on research-creation approaches by combining qualitative methods and artistic expressions to depict women’s embodied realities and forge their experiences of being and becoming. Treating women’s movements as sites of resistance to hegemonic masculinities and spaces for [re]engaging with contested memories, the paper offers an intersectional analysis of the multidimensional forms of trauma embodied by women in Zimbabwe and avenues available to them to [re]create the envisaged peaceful society.

Bio: Ruth Murambadoro is an African feminist who writes on women, transitional justice, gender justice and politics of the Global South. Her notable writings include a single authored monograph Transitional Justice in Africa: The Case of Zimbabwe, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020. As a recipient of the 2021 Provost's Postdoctoral Fellowship for Black and Indigenous Scholars at York University, her work is exploring the gendered nature of the post-colonial state to broaden understandings of violence perpetrated against women– a constituency that remains marginalized by political concessions that undermine their socio-political agency in Zimbabwe. Over the next 5-10 years Ruth endeavors to develop artistic creations working closely with emerging and seasoned creative African artists to broaden her current project on a digital repository (re)presenting African women’s stories.

Twitter handle: @WaZvogo

This Tubman Talk will be held in the Resource Centre at 314 York Lanes.