Whiteness and shades of grey: erasure, amnesia and the ethnography of Zimbabwe's whites

Abstract

A growing number of scholarly studies have been published about Zimbabwe's white population, especially since the highly publicised state-driven land takeovers which began in 2000. Much as these studies have produced useful insights into the histories, attitudes, experiences and lives of white Zimbabweans, aspects of these representations also raise important questions and concerns. Looking critically, particularly at recent ethnographic works on white Zimbabweans by anthropologists, this review essay discusses some of the social and historical amnesia and certain erasures apparent in these works. These have often produced homogenised and essentialised, or unfair, representations of white Zimbabweans. This essay suggests that an uncritical use and perpetuation of certain myths and discourses that have powerfully come to the fore in the political, social and economic crisis of the last 15 years has led to the problems evident with these ethnographies.