Cultural Economic Survival under Crisis—Malawian Nyau/Gule Wamkulu Dances and Zimbabwe’s Economic Meltdown

Abstract

In the aftermath of the Zimbabwean crisis, communities have sought alternative livelihoods to survive the economic meltdown that has characterised the Zimbabwean political economy since 2000. Existing historiography has detailed the numerous strategies and tactics that have been deployed by Zimbabweans in the last two decades to circumvent the resultant economic challenges. However, it has not detailed how some African ethnic minorities, including those which have been pushed to, and subjugated at, the margins of the Zimbabwean nation and are living in a ‘state of unbelonging’, have uniquely engaged their cultural cosmologies as an alternative economic livelihood. Using the case of people of Malawian ancestry and their Nyau/Gule Wamkulu cultural dances, the chapter demonstrates how, amongst other survival strategies, these people have distinctly resorted to their cultural practices for economic survival in the face of a crisis that systematically displaced the majority of them from their traditional occupations as farm workers and miners (through the agrarian-land reform, industrial retrenchments and mine shutdowns). Malawian communities have thus uniquely used their ethnicised Nyau cultural dances for income generation through performances on Zimbabwean farms, mines and urban areas during local and national events.