Ghetto ‘wall-standing’ : Counterhegemonic graffiti in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Previous research on African communication systems and modes have mainly focused on the use of fire, drums, music, dance, and tribal markings, among others. African media and communication have generally been conceptualised in the paradigm of ‘rural’ forms of communication. As such, an idealised/traditional African rural-urban dichotomy has predominantly been used in defining and characterisation of the cultural bases/drive of the two ‘distinct’ societies. Kanu argues that governance and its associated democratic principle is a cherished African value which existed in precolonial Africa as a pattern of African administration, despite arguments to the contrary. Wilson argues that the use of the qualifier ‘traditional’, associated with African media is, potentially, semantically and conceptually misleading. Discursive space is generally controlled by clearly defined boundaries that distinguish between the public and the private. Political identity, taken in the wider context of identity politics, is an integral aspect of a person’s total identity.