Contestation in Postcolonial Drama: Residual and Emergent Consciousness in Zimbabwean Theatre at Independence—NTO and ZACT

Abstract

This chapter analyses issues of contestation, hybridity and identity construction in post-colonial contexts. It traces how the Zimbabwe Association of Community based Theatres (ZACT) tried to contain the perceived dominance of previously dominant Western practices in the post-independence era. It demonstrates instances of slippage between the two traditions within this general polarity. Using (Williams, Marxism and literature, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1977) twin concepts of residual and emergent consciousness and Gramsci’s (Gramsci, Prison notebooks, Lawrence Wishart, London, 1970) rule and hegemony it explores this general polarisation even as this was ambivalent towards, and unable to deal with hybrid slippages. The chapter argues that the NTO’s reluctance to let go of its tenacious hold on colonialist discursive practices may be analysed in terms of a hitherto dominant consciousness that was fast becoming residual, while ZACT’s efforts to establish alternative discursive practices was part of an ongoing process of emergent consciousness in postcolonial theatre practice.