The thesis aimed at explaining why some Zimbabwean teachers have migrated to South Africa while others have not despite experiencing the same economic and political crisis. The focus was on external secondary brain drain, which is the movement of human resources from one country to another within the Southern African Development Community region (SIRDIC, 2008). It was premised on the theoretical argument that uneven development in the SADC region sustains the movement of human resources from the poorer countries to the richer or ‘core’ countries in the region particularly South Africa. The thesis reviewed literature on the Zimbabwean crisis and conducted a quantitative field survey, which was supplemented by a qualitative aspect, in order to analyse the determinants of teacher migration to South Africa. The field survey involved the self-administration of questionnaires by 200 Zimbabwean teachers, half of them teaching in South Africa and the other half in Zimbabwe, as well as collected life stories from five migrant teachers, interviewed four school heads, and perused circulars. The research found that Zimbabwe’s reversed economic growth and social development constituted the background on which teacher migration occurred. This brain drain, which mainly involved highly qualified and specialised mathematics and science teachers, coincided with the peak of the Zimbabwean crisis around 2008 indicating its survival significance. Teacher migration continued after 2008 due networks and teachers’ salaries that remained inadequate as they were close to the poverty line. Several recommendations were made including strategies for reducing the brain drain. / Development Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Development studies)

Thesis (PhD)-- Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: My thesis is on the literary imagining of the city in Zimbabwean literature that emerges as a re-visioning and contestation of its colonial and postcolonial manifestations. Throughout the seven chapters of the thesis I conduct a close reading of literary texts engaged in literary (re)creations of the city. I focus on texts by selected authors from 1949 to 2009 in order to trace the key aspects of this city imagining and their historical situatedness. In the first chapter, I argue the case for the inclusions and exclusions that are evident. In this historical span, I read the Zimbabwean canon and the city that is figured in it as palimpsests in order to analyse (dis)connections. This theoretical frame brings out wider relationships and connections that emerge in the (re)writing of both the canon and city. I adopt approaches that emphasise how spaces and temporalities ‗overlap and interlace‘ to provoke new ways of thinking about the city and the construction of identity. I argue for the country-city connection as an important dynamic in the various (re)imaginings of the city. Space is politicized along lines of race, ethnicity, gender and class in regimes of politics and aesthetics of inclusion and exclusion that are refuted by the focal texts of the thesis. I analyse the fragmentation of rural and urban space in the literary texts and how country and city house politico-aesthetic regimes of domination, exclusion and marginalisation. Using tropes of the house, music and train, I analyse how connections in the city are imagined. These tropes are connected to the travel motif found in all the chapters of the thesis. Travel is in most of the texts offered as a form of escape from the country represented as a site of essentialism or nativism. Both settlers and nationalists, from different ideological positions, invest the land and the city with symbolic political and cultural values. Both figure the city as alien to the colonised, a figuration that is contested in most of the focal texts of the thesis. Travel from the country to the city through halfway houses is presented as a way of negotiating location in new spaces, finding new identities and contending with the multiple connections found in the city. The relentless (un)housing in Marechera‘s writing expresses a refusal to be bounded by aesthetic, nationalist and racial houses as they are constructed in the city. In Vera‘s fiction, travel – in multifarious directions and in a re-racing of the quest narrative in Lessing – becomes a critical search for a re-scripting of gender and woman‘s demand for a right to the city. The nomadism in Vera‘s fiction is re-configured in the portrayal of the marginalised as the parvenus and pariahs of the city in the fiction of Chinodya and Tagwira. In the chapter on Chikwava and Gappah, in the contexts of spatial displacement and expansion, the nationalist nativist construction of self, city and nation comes under stress. I interrogate how ideologies of space shape politico-aesthetic regimes in both the country and the city throughout the different historical phases of the city. In this regard I adopt theoretical approaches that engage with questions of aesthetic equality as they relate to the contestation of spatial partitioning based on categories of race, gender and class. In city re-imaginings this re-claiming of aesthetic power to imagine the city is invoked and in all the texts it emerges as a reclaiming of the right to the city by the colonised, women, immigrants and all the marginalised. I adopt those approaches that lend themselves to the deconstruction of hegemonic figuration, disempowerment and silencing of the marginalised, especially women, in re-imagining the city and their identities in it. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: My tesis se onderwerp is die literêre voorstellings van die stad in Zimbabwiese letterkunde wat ontstaan as ‗n herverbeelding van en teenvoeter vir beide koloniale en postkoloniale manifestasies. Regdeur die sewe hoofstukke van die tesis voer ek deurtastende interpretasies van literêre tekste aan, wat die stad op nuwe maniere uitbeeld. My fokus val op tekste deur geselekteerde skrywers van 1949 tot 2009 ten einde die sleutelelemente van hierdie proses van stadverbeelding en die historiese gesitueerdheid daarvan te ondersoek. In die eerste hoofstuk bied ek die argument aan betreffende die voor-die-hand liggende in- en uitsluitings van tekste. Deur hierdie historiese strekking lees ek die Zimbabwiese kanon en die stad wat daarin figureer as palimpseste, ten einde die (dis-)konneksies te kan analiseer. Hierdie teoretiese beraming belig die wyere verhoudings en verbindings wat na vore kom in die (her-) skrywe van beide die kanon en die stad. Ek gebruik benaderings wat benadruk hoe ruimtes en tydelikhede oormekaarvloei en saamvleg om sodoende nuwe maniere om oor die stad en oor identiteitskonstruksie te besin, aanmoedig. Ek argumenteer vir die stad-platteland konneksie as ‗n belangrike dinamika in die verskillende (her-)voorstellings van die stad. Ruimte word só verpolitiseer met betrekking tot ras, etnisiteit, gender en klas binne politieke regimes asook ‗n estetika van in- en uitsluiting wat deur die kern-tekste verwerp word. Ek analiseer verder die fragmentasie van landelike en stedelike ruimtes in die literêre tekste, en hoe die plattelandse en stedelike ruimtes tuistes bied aan polities-estetiese regimes van dominasie, uitsluiting en marginalisering. Die huis, musiek en die trein word gebruik as beelde om verbindings in die stad te ondersoek. Hierdie beelde sluit aan by die motif van die reis wat in al die hoofstukke manifesteer. Die reis word in die meeste tekste gesien as ‗n vorm van ontsnapping uit die platteland, wat voorgestel word as ‗n plek van essensie-voorskrywing en ingeborenheid. Beide intrekkers en nasionaliste, uit verskillende ideologiese vertrekpunte, bekleed die platteland of die stad met simboliese politieke en kulturele waardes. Beide verbeeld die stad as vreemd aan die gekoloniseerdes; ‗n uitbeelding wat verwerp word in die fokale tekste van die studie. Reis van die platteland na die stad deur halfweg-tuistes word aangebied as metodes van onderhandeling om plek te vind in nuwe ruimtes, nuwe identiteite te bekom en om te leer hoe om met die stedelike verbindings om te gaan. Die onverbiddelikke (ont-)tuisting in die werk van Marechera gee uitdrukking aan ‗n weiering om deur estetiese, nasionalistiese en rassiese behuising soos deur die stad omskryf en voorgeskryf, vasgevang te word. In die fiksie van Vera word reis – in telke rigtings en in die her-rassing van die soektog-motif in Lessing – ‗n kritiese soeke na die herskrywing van gender en van die vrou se op-eis van die reg tot die stad. Die nomadisme in Vera se fiksie word ge-herkonfigureer in uitbeelding van gemarginaliseerdes as die parvenus en die uitgeworpenes van die stad in die fiksie van Chinodya en Tagwira. In die hoofstuk oor Chikwava en Gappah word die nasionalistiese ingeborenes se konstruering van die self, stad en nasie onder stremmimg geplaas in kontekste van ruimtelike verplasing en uitbreiding. Ek ondervra hoe ideologieë van spasie vorm gee aan polities-estetiese regimes in beide die platteland en die stad regdeur die verskillende historiese fases van die stad. In hierdie opsig maak ek gebruik van teoretiese benaderings wat betrokke is met vraagstukke van estetiese gelykheid met verwysing na kontestasies oor ruimtelike verdelings gebaseer op kategorieë van ras, gender en klas. In herverbeeldings van die stad word hierdie reklamering van die estetiese mag om die stad te verbeel, bygehaal in al die tekste as herklamering van die reg tot die stad deur gekoloniseerdes, vroue, immigrante en alle gemarginaliseerdes. Ek maak gebruik van benaderings wat hulself leen tot die dekonstruksie van hegemoniese verbeelding, ontmagtiging en die stilmaak van gemarginaliseerdes, veral vroue, in die herverbeelding van die stad en hul plek binne die stadsruimte.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The dissertation is a comparative analysis of the structural (generic/cognitive) and ideological properties of Zimbabwean news reports in English, Shona and Ndebele, focusing specifically on the examination of the proliferation of authorial attitudinal subjectivities in ‘controversial’ ‘hard news’ reports and the ‘objectivity’ ideal. The study, thus, compares the textuality of Zimbabwean printed news reports from the English newspapers (The Herald, Zimbabwe Independent and Newsday), the Shona newspaper (Kwayedza) and the Ndebele newspaper (Umthunywa) during the period from January 2010 to August 2012. The period represents an interesting epoch in the country’s political landscape. It is a period characterized by a power-sharing government, a political situation that has highly polarized the media and as such, media stances in relation to either of the two major parties to the unity government, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T). Couched in the theoretical explications of Appraisal Theory, specifically the ‘reporter voice’ configuration, the study sought to investigate the proliferation of journalistic ideological subjectivities in ‘hard news’ reports – a genre of news reporting that is largely characterised by claims of ‘objectivity’ and/or ‘neutrality’ and dispassionate journalistic reporting positions. The study, also assuming the orbital structure model developed by Iedema, Feez and White (1994) and White (1997, 1998) in the analysis of ‘hard news’ report in English broadsheet reporting, furthermore sought to investigate whether the textuality and cognitive/rhetorical structure of ‘hard news’ reports in news reports from the three Zimbabwean language journalistic cultures are organised around the same structure. The corpus of news reports analysed in this study were examined for the proliferation of instances of observable authorial ideological positionings by focusing how the choices made in terms of lexical, lexicogrammatical and syntagmatic resources signal evaluative keys that betray authorial ideological subjectivities. The texts were, thus, subjected to close textual analyses in terms of generic structure and journalistic voices. The study shows that Zimbabwean news reports in English, Shona and Ndebele generally share the same structure as expressed by the orbital model, in which authorial subjective evaluations are curtailed through a variety of strategic impersonalisations – largely ‘attribution’. However, despite these similarities, significant differences were observed with regards to the textuality of news reports as well as the uses made of attributed materials. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die verhandeling behels ʼn vergelykende analise van die strukturele (generiese/kognitiewe) en ideologiese eienskappe van Zimbabwiese nuusberigte in Engels, Shona en Ndebele, wat veral op die ondersoek van die proliferasie van subjektiwiteite in die houdings van outeurs by ‘kontroversiële’ ‘hardenuusberigte’ en die ideaal van ‘objektiwiteit’ fokus. Die studie het dus die tekstualiteit van Zimbabwiese gedrukte nuusberigte uit die Engels koerante The Herald, Zimbabwe Independent en Newsday, die Shona-koerant Kwayedza en die Ndebele-koerant Umthunywa uit die tydperk Januarie 2010 tot Augustus 2012 vergelyk. Dié tydperk verteenwoordig ʼn interessante tydvak in die land se politieke landskap. Dit is ʼn tydperk gekenmerk deur ʼn magsdelende regering, ʼn politieke situasie wat die media tot ʼn groot mate gepolariseer het en as sodanig mediastandpunte in verband met enige van die twee belangrikste partye in die eenheidsregering, die Zimbabwe Africa National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) en die Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T). Uitgedruk in die teoretiese uiteensettings van teorie van waardebepaling, in die besonder die ‘stem van die verslaggewer’-konfigurasie, het die studie gepoog om die uitbreiding van joernalistieke ideologiese subjektiwiteite in ‘hardenuusberigte’ – ʼn beriggewingsgenre wat grootliks deur aansprake van ‘objektiwiteit’ en/of ‘neutraliteit’ en posisies van emosielose joernalistieke beriggewing gekenmerk word – te ondersoek. Die studie, wat ook die orbitale struktuur-model ontwikkel deur Iedema, Feez en White (1994) en White (1997, 1998) by die analise van ‘hardenuusberigte’ in Engelstalige breëbladberiggewing gebruik het, het verder daarna gestreef om ondersoek in te stel daarna of die tekstualiteit en kognitiewe/retoriese struktuur van ‘hardenuusberigte’ in drie joernalistieke kulture in Zimbabwe om dieselfde struktuur heen georganiseer is. Die korpus nuusberigte wat in hierdie studie ontleed is, is nagegaan vir die proliferasie van gevalle van waarneembare ideologiese posisionerings van die skrywers deur te fokus op hoe die keuses wat gemaak is ten opsigte van leksikale, leksiko-grammatikale en sintagmatiese hulpbronne bewys lewer van waardebepalende sleutels wat ideologiese subjektiwiteite van die outeurs verklap. Die tekste was dus onderworpe aan noukeurige tekstuele analises ten opsigte van generiese struktuur en joernalistieke stemme. Die studie het aangetoon dat Zimbabwiese nuusberigte in Engels, Shona en Ndebele in die reël dieselfde struktuur deel as wat deur die orbitale model uitgedruk word, waarin subjektiewe evaluerings deur die outeur beperk word deur ʼn verskeidenheid strategiese onpersoonlikhede – hoofsaaklik ‘toeskrywing’. Ondanks hierdie ooreenkomste is beduidende verskille waargeneem met betrekking tot die tekstualiteit van nuusberigte asook die gebruik wat van toegeskryfde materiaal gemaak word. / Deep gratitude goes to the Graduate School (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences – University of Stellenbosch) for the funding/scholarship extended to me through the African Doctoral Academy (ADA), which has made this work see the light of day

Student Number : 0005589F - MA research report - School of International Relations - Faculty of Humanities / This research report identifies the role that the land redistribution in Zimbabwe plays and has played in the country’s politics and its foreign policy toward both South Africa and Britain. The situation in Zimbabwe is explained in full using a wide range of sources. Zimbabwean history is investigated in-depth to reveal the path the country has followed, and what factors from the past have led to the country’s situation today. International relations discourse and international law are evaluated in order to explain the country’s complicated situation in academic terms, while South African and British foreign policy are analysed in order to gauge international and regional reactions to the crisis.

Submitted by JÚLIO HEBER SILVA (julioheber@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-11-23T18:26:44Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Nayara Cristina Rodrigues de Andrade - 2016.pdf: 1839680 bytes, checksum: 845d47c8f4cb849d7e0c7aa9c84459fd (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jaqueline Silva (jtas29@gmail.com) on 2016-11-30T15:41:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Nayara Cristina Rodrigues de Andrade - 2016.pdf: 1839680 bytes, checksum: 845d47c8f4cb849d7e0c7aa9c84459fd (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-11-30T15:41:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Nayara Cristina Rodrigues de Andrade - 2016.pdf: 1839680 bytes, checksum: 845d47c8f4cb849d7e0c7aa9c84459fd (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-09-29 / The aim of this research and of the dissertation resulting from it is the analysis of the construction of the representation of reality in the book The House of Hunger (1978), by Dambudzo Marechera. Prominent writer from Zimbabwe, inscribed in the African Literature in English, his works do not have yet translations into Portuguese. In his own country, he has suffered several accusations for refusing to write according to the Preand Post-Independence national call to the production of works under the 19th century Realism and the 20th century Socialist Realism. His rejection of these “traditions” has resulted in a critical fortune that sometimes vilifies his works for being antirealist and anti-mimetic. This work focuses primarily on tracing how the concept of mimesis already presented differences in Ancient Greece, through Plato’s and Aristotle’s ideas, and how the contribution of the theorist Erich Auerbach (2013) collaborates for the analysis and understanding of the construction of the representation of reality in the works by Dambudzo Marechera, which re-evaluates the charges against the author afore mentioned. For the development of this thesis, we decided to focus our attention on the novel “The House of Hunger” and the short stories “Burning in the Rain” and “The Transformation of Harry”, through the analysis of how the choice of the narrative point of view used in the works and how their narratives are constructed help for the construction of the representation of reality. In the Third Chapter, we made use of the postcolonial theories by Homi Bhabha (1998) and Frantz Fanon (2005) to help us analyze how mimesis is built in the short story “Black Skin What Mask”, through an identity crisis suffered by the protagonist-character. The short-story, which has in its title an obvious paraphrase of the title of Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (2008), has the construction of reality emerging through the tension between the fictional entity and the environment, which is a configuration of what Erich Auerbach understands mimesis is. / O objetivo desta pesquisa e da dissertação dela resultante é a análise da construção da representação da realidade no livro The House of Hunger (1978), de Dambudzo Marechera. Proeminente escritor do Zimbábue, inscrito na literatura africana de língua inglesa, suas obras ainda não têm traduções para a língua portuguesa. Dentro do seu país, o autor foi alvo de diversas acusações por se negar a escrever segundo a chamada nacional pré e pós-independência, que objetivava produzir obras que obedecessem à estética do realismo do século XIX ou do realismo socialista do século XX. Sua rejeição a essa “tradição” resultou em uma fortuna crítica que, por vezes, vilipendia suas obras por serem antirrealistas e antimiméticas. Esta dissertação tem como foco principal traçar o modo como o conceito de mímesis já apresentava divergências desde a Grécia antiga, com Platão e Aristóteles, e como as contribuições do teórico Erich Auerbach (2013) colaboram para a análise e entendimento do modo da construção da representação da realidade na obra de Dambudzo Marechera, o que reavalia a acusação mencionada anteriormente. Para o desenvolvimento desta dissertação, decidimos focar nossa atenção na novela “The House of Hunger” e os contos “Burning in the Rain” e “The Transformation of Harry”, para analisamos como a escolha do foco narrativo usado nas obras e o modo como suas narrativas são construídas ajudam na construção da representação da realidade. No capítulo terceiro, fizemos uso das teorias pós-coloniais de Homi Bhabha (1998) e de Frantz Fanon (2005) para analisarmos o modo como a mímesis é construída no conto “Black Skin What Mask”, através de uma crise identitária vivenciada pelo personagem-protagonista. O conto, que tem em seu título uma paráfrase evidente da obra Pele negra, máscaras brancas (2008), de Frantz Fanon, tem sua realidade construída em meio à tensão entre a entidade ficcional e o ambiente, o que é a configuração daquilo que Erich Auerbach considera seja a mímesis.

This study explores the social ‘vision’ of three Shona women writers vis-à-vis their Zimbabwean society, attempting to ascertain whether this vision is entrenched in the post-independence context or has been shaped by the whole canvas of colonization and its impact on Shona society. For this purpose, Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1988), Yvonne Vera’s Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals (1992) and Freedom Nyamubaya’s Dusk of Dawn (1995) have been selected to explore the representation of Zimbabwean society in different artistic genres. The approach is mainly socio-historical, examining the selected texts in the context of Zimbabwean history and paying attention to how the socio-political dynamics in both colonial Rhodesia and post-independence Zimbabwe influence the creative output of Zimbabwean writers, in general, and of the selected writers, in particular. In addition, this study refers to other aspects of literary theory, especially African feminist theories, since all three writers discuss the plight of black African women. This study consists of four chapters arranged according to the historical period in which the texts are set, which coincides with publication date. Chapter One provides a general background to Zimbabwean writing in English to root the study in the socio-historical experiences of the country. This chapter thus considers the works of both white and black writers. Chapter Two discusses Nervous Conditions, critiquing it as a women’s narrative in a social realist mode, because it portrays the social and political forces as significant shapers of human lives. Chapter Three analyzes Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals as a text in the fabulist mode, which re-imagines cultural and literary politics. Nyamubaya’s poetry, discussed in Chapter Four, is autobiographical and ideological. It revisits the Zimbabwean liberation war, situating it within both the private and national spheres, and arguing that such a standpoint emanates from Nyamubaya’s need to make sense of her own experiences during the war and in post-independence Zimbabwe. In conclusion, the study summarizes the major findings of the research, analyzing these against the background to Zimbabwean writing in English given in Chapter One. / Dissertation (MA (English))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / English / unrestricted

Many Zimbabweans experienced its 18 April 1980 independence of Zimbabwe as ushering in an era of hope. However, it is shown that events like Operations Murambatsvina and Makavhotasei, the Land Reform Program, and the Economic Structural Adjustment Program significantly and negatively impacted on the initial hope of independence. The study traces and explores the potential of Moltmann’s work on hope for the Zimbabwean context. It is concluded that Moltmann’s work can make a constructive contribution the meta-discourse on hope in Zimbabwe. This is specifically the case with reference to the way in which Moltmann’s theology of hope integrates the role of history, God’s promise in a comprehensive eschatological framework, grounded in his Christology. / Dissertation (MTh)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Dogmatics and Christian Ethics / unrestricted

PhD (English) / Department of English

This study is an interpretive analysis of Zimbabwean political auto/biographical narratives in contexts of changing culture, race, ethnicity and gender identity images of the self and nation. I used eclectic theories of postcolonialism to explore the fractured nature of both the processes of identity construction and narration, and the contradictions inherent in identity categories of nation and self. The problem of using autobiographical memory to recall the momentous events that formed the contradictory identities of self and nation in the creative imagination of the lives of Ian Smith, Maurice Nyagumbo, Abel Muzorewa, Joshua Nkomo, Doris Lessing, Fay Chung, Judith Garfield Todd, Tendai Westerhof and Lutanga Shaba have been highlighted. The study concluded that there are narrative and ideological disjunctures between experiencing life and narrating those experiences to create approximations of coherent identities of individual selves and those of the nation. The study argued that each of the stories analyzed in this study contributed a version of the multiple Zimbabwean narratives that no one story could ever tell without being contested by others. Thus the study explores how white Rhodesian auto/biographies depend on the imperial repertoire to construct varying, even contradicting, images of white identities and the Rhodesian nation, which are also contested by black nationalist life narratives. The narratives by women writers, both white and black, introduced further instabilities to the male authored narratives by moving beyond the conventional understanding of what is ‘political’ in political auto/biographies. The HIV and AIDS narratives by black women thrust into the public sphere personalized versions of self so that the political consequence of their inclusion was not only to image Zimbabwe as a diseased society, but one desperately in need of political solutions to confront the different pathologies inherited from colonialism and which also have continued in the post-independence period. / English Studies / (D. Litt. et Phil. (English))

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2015 / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis undertakes a comparative reading of post-colonial literature written in English in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to bring into focus the similarities and differences between fictional representations of poverty in these three countries. The thesis explores the unique way in which literature may contribute to the better understanding of poverty, a field that has hitherto been largely dominated by scholarship that relies on quantitative analysis as opposed to qualitative approaches. The thesis seeks to use examples from selected texts to illustrate that (as many social scientists have argued before) literature provides insights into the ‘lived realities’ of the poor and that with its vividly imagined specificities it illuminates the broad generalisations about poverty established in other (data-gathering) disciplines. Selected texts from the three countries destabilise the usual categories of gender, race and class which are often utilised in quantitative studies of poverty and by so doing show that experiences of poverty cut across and intersect all of these spheres and the experiences differ from one person to another regardless of which category they may fall within. The three main chapters focus primarily on local indigence as depicted by texts from the three countries. The selection of texts in the chapters follows a thematic approach and texts are discussed by means of selective focus on the ways in which they address the theme of poverty. Using three main theorists – Maria Pia Lara, Njabulo Ndebele and Amartya Sen – the thesis focuses centrally on how writers use varying literary devices and techniques to provide moving depictions of poverty that show rather than tell the reader of the unique experiences that different characters and different communities have of deprivation and shortage of basic needs. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis onderneem ‘n vergelykende studie van post-koloniale letterkunde in Engels uit Botswana, Namibië en Zimbabwe, om sodoende die ooreenstemmings en verskille tussen letterkundige uitbeeldings van armoede in hierdie drie lande aan die lig te bring. Die tesis ondersoek die unieke manier waarop letterkunde kan bydra tot ‘n beter begrip van armoede, ‘n studieveld wat tot huidiglik grotendeels op kwantitatiewe analises berus, in teenstelling met kwalitatiewe benaderings. Die tesis se werkswyse gebruik voorbeelde uit gelekteerde tekste met die doel om te illustreer (soos verskeie sosiaal-wetenskaplikes reeds aangevoer het) dat letterkunde insig voorsien in die lewenservarings van armoediges en dat dit die breë veralgemenings aangaande armoede in ander (data-gebaseerde) wetenskappe kan illumineer. Geselekteerde tekste uit die drie lande destabiliseer die gewone kategorieë van gender, ras en klas wat normaaalweg gebruik word in kwantitatiewe studies van armoede, om sodoende aan te toon dat die ervaring van armoede dwarsdeur hierdie klassifikasies sny en dat hierdie tipe lewenservaring verskil van persoon tot persoon ongeag in watter kategorie hulle geplaas word. Die drie sentrale hoofstukke fokus primêr op lokale armoede soos uitgebeeld in tekste vanuit die drie lande. Die seleksie van tekste in die hoofstukke volg ‘n tematiese patroon en tekste word geanaliseer na aanleiding van ‘n selektiewe fokus op die maniere waarop hulle armoede uitbeeld. Deur gebruik te maak van ‘ die teorieë van Maria Pia Lara, Njabulo Ndebele en Amartya Sen, fokus hierdie tesis sentraal op hoe skrywers verskeie literêre metodes en tegnieke aanwend ten einde ontroerende uitbeeldings van armoede te skep wat die leser wys liewer as om hom/haar slegs te vertel aangaande die unieke ervarings wat verskillende karakters en gemeenskappe het van ontbering en die tekort aan basiese behoefte-voorsiening.