An examination of an African postcolonial experience of language, culture, and identity: Amakhosi theatre, Ako Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Can colonised peoples in Africa use languages of their colonisation without re-inscribing their own colonisation and/or losing their own languages and cultures? This is one of the questions at the centre of the debate about the use of English in postcolonial Africa. The debate is concerned with whether or not to use English to express African cultural identities. Some critics reject English for its complicity in colonialism. In this argument, English is regarded as a threat to indigenous languages and cultures. On the other hand, some critics view English as a 'permanent' feature of postcolonial Africa and also as a language which connects Africa to the rest of the world. In this perspective English is useful for pragmatic purposes. Thus there is usually an either/or response to the question about English.;For me, the answer lies in a both/and explanation. That is, in the use of both the colonial and indigenous languages. A both/and perspective allows for the exploration of the contradictions of postcolonial identity.;Using Amakhosi theatre of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, I explore the way in which postcolonial identity in Zimbabwe takes shape at the intersection of the colonial and the indigenous languages. The space where English and the indigenous language, here Ndebele, intersect is conceptualised as a hybrid space. Exploring this space is useful for understanding colonial and postcolonial experiences. The study is also necessary for understanding postcolonial agency, that is, the ways in which colonised people position themselves in relation to the colonial experience and the ways they shape their own identities, cultures and languages.;The dissertation illustrates the impulse of internalisation of colonial structures as accompanied by the interrogation of the colonial. Using Amakhosi plays, I question the idea of postcolonial identity as a location of confusion, undecidedness and weakness. Amakhosi illustrates postcolonial space as productive and creative and as a location where colonised peoples take charge of the formation of their identities, languages and cultures.;The hybrid space is also conceptualised as an ambivalent space, that is, as a space where English is challenged and accommodated simultaneously. The space also marks the assertion of Ndebele. But at same time Ndebele is asserted and reclaimed, it is also adapted and changed. The hybrid space announces a new language and new culture which is always being formed and fabricated. As an educator I am interested in the relevance of the hybrid space for the conception of a curriculum for Zimbabwe. I argue that a curriculum for postcolonial Zimbabwe will have to be hybrid, that is, it will have to incorporate the colonial and the indigene.