Between Two Worlds a memoir and 'ONCE ALIEN HERE’: The Rhodesian past, Zimbabwean present and the paradox of identity in white farmers’ memoirs

Between Two Worlds produces, and reflects on, representations of identity within a white society, during the period narrated, in postcolonial Zambia. While the country’s name and flag have been transformed to reflect its independence, the memoir explores how white identity was still a paradigm in Zambia in the late twentieth century; how historical amnesia remained steadfast, and, in many whites, a neo-colonial ideology still existed vis a vis the black population.<br><br>It is, in addition, a study of the personal experience of abuse within marriage and of the ways in which the victim can feel pressured into normalising or otherwise contextualising the violence.<br><br>The Critical Component of this thesis examines the construction of identity in the neighbouring state of Zimbabwe, focusing particularly on farm memoirs published in the aftermath of the land reform programme (2000).

Such works have so far received only limited scholarship but they are an important resource for understanding the complexities of white Zimbabwean identity in the postcolonial period, particularly in the context of the land redistribution in the early 2000s. Taking Paradise Plundered by Jim Barker and Jambanja by Eric Harrison as case studies, this thesis examines the ways in which they conceptualise and narrate their white minority experience in the politically fraught context of the years after 2000.<br><br>My approach to the texts is shaped by the intersection of postcolonial theory and life writing studies; the analysis is therefore attentive both to the legacies of shaping Zimbabwean literary culture and the construction of self and identity in memoir and other literary forms.