Bare life and subjectivity in post-Independence era: the figure of homo sacer in selected Southern African narratives

ABSTRACT

The demise of Apartheid and colonialism in South Africa and Zimbabwe ushered in hope among the masses, who expected transformation to improve their economic, political and social conditions. However, context and history conspired to orchestrate persistent suffering, uncertainty and existential angst, which find expression in literary works. Drawing from Agamben’s concept of biopolitics, we interrogate fictional representations of economic and socio-political conditions in post-apartheid South Africa and post-independent Zimbabwe. We analyse how writers portray post-colonial conditions, as shaping and creating the figure of homo Sacer. The study focuses on Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope, Mhlongo’s After Tears and Moele’s Room 207, to assess how writers portray the post-independence subject, as embodying precarity in spaces that ought to have afforded them dignity and hope. The Foucault-Agamben connection and Mbembe’s notions of conviviality and necropolitics are used to explain the deplorable conditions of citizens. The texts convey ambiguities and paradoxes generated from sovereign power that have the potential to reduce citizens and non-citizens to a naked existence. The novels satirise and subvert sovereign power for poor governance, corruption and political betrayal, which have bred anxiety, disillusionment, inequalities, marginalisation and poverty among ordinary people, as summed up in Agamben’s notion of bare life.

KEYWORDS:

• Biopolitics
• necropolitics
• conviviality
• zone of exception
• sovereign power
• homo sacer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Esther Mavengano

Esther Mavengano is a Lecturer in Linguistics and Literature, Department of English and Media Studies, Great Zimbabwe University. She holds a PhD in linguistics and literary studies obtained from the North-West University, South Africa. Her areas of interests are Applied Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Poetics and English as a Second Language and has published in these areas.

Paul Nepapleh Nkamta

Paul Nepapleh Nkamta is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, School of Languages, Faculty of Humanities, North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, Republic of South Africa. His research interests include linguistic inequality in advertising, multilingualism and multiculturalism. He has recently become interested in reading literacy among first and second language English speakers. He has published widely in peer reviewed journals such as Cogent Arts and Humanities, South African Journal of African Languages, African Renaissance, Journal of Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, Transylvanian Review, among others.