16:00 - 17:30
Room: Physics – Seminar Room
Stream: Space, Pace, Ace: Navigating Creative Rooms For Productivity in Africa
Chair/s:
Florian Carl
‘Mishika-shika’: Navigating the Zimbabwean City Spaces and Representations in Urban Contemporary Music
Doreen Rumbidzai Tivenga
University of the Free State, Bloemfontein

This paper analyses the representations of Zimbabwean city spaces in urban contemporary Zimbabwean music and the associated daily struggles of urban dwellers. The analysis is mainly centred on the experiences of the youth considering that both the urban contemporary musicians and their fans are prominently the youth. The term ‘mishika-shika,’ which is associated with the city streets, is adopted in this paper to examine how urban dwellers claim the city spaces and appropriate them into creative spaces that offer them an alternative livelihood in a failed economy. It is these same spaces that the urban performers/musicians who both experience and observe what happens in the city, tap into for their music productions. In Shona slang and street lingo, ‘mishika-shika’ are mainly associated with public transport operations, in particular, commuter omnibuses popularly known as kombis in Zimbabwe; and the word is used to refer to illegal passenger pick-up points. I therefore use the term in this paper as a trope that represents tactics that ordinary Zimbabweans use to navigate the city spaces in order to get the better of a stifling economy. I therefore argue that ‘mishika-shika’ are equivalent to what De Certeau (1984: 40) calls “tactical ruses and surprises: clever tricks of the weak within the order established by the strong.” This analysis also considers city spaces as crucial in the mapping of youth identities, hence I examine how urban contemporary musical texts are expressive spaces for the representation of youth spatial identities and the contestations that are involved thereof.


Reference:
Tu-A40 Space 3-P-003
Presenter/s:
Doreen Rumbidzai Tivenga
Presentation type:
Panel
Room:
Physics – Seminar Room
Chair/s:
Florian Carl
Date:
Tuesday, 11 September
Time:
16:30 - 16:45
Session times:
16:00 - 17:30