3. Severe Conflicts: Frustration-Deprivation
2.5. Conclusion
In summary, this literature review has attempted to reframe the notion of conflict to be seen through the lens of social constructivism; more particularly investigating the nature of narrative as experienced through practice, discourse and performance and as it relates to the Matabeleland violence of the early 1980s. Section one expounded the practice of social conflict theory and makes application (and critique) of four categories of explanation attached to the Matabeleland context: ethno-cultural; personal-relational;
political-structural; and historical-ideological. The following points were emphasised:
205 Ibid.
206 Bozzoli, 2004: 12.
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• Ethno-cultural interpretation – Although ethnicity has played a role in the Matabeleland conflict, to ascribe this violence to a strictly essentialist ethnic- based conflict would fall prey to reductionism and grave oversimplification.
• Personal-relational interpretation – While there is certain merit to character studies, memoirs and autobiographies, they tend to be anecdotal in nature and in so doing they place an overemphasis on personal agency (neglecting structure) in conflict escalation.
• Political-structural interpretation – In contrast to the personal-relational explanation, this category gives full weight to corporate agency (neglecting personal) as the only legitimate force in conflict transformation.
• Historical-ideological interpretation – This layer of analysis incorporates and translates the dynamics of both the individual and the collective narrative in conflict happenings. However with its focus on the past it often fails to predict the changes (either personal or corporate) that may occur in the future.
The premise of this study is that narrative discourse becomes the bridging glue, the conduit through which the disparate threads of interpretation mentioned above can be held together and made sense of in a contained whole.
Section Two of this Chapter introduced the reader to the field of narrative discourse analysis. This section highlighted certain tributaries of narratology such as linguistics, mythology, literary criticism, new historicism and various models of narrative practice in therapy and mediation. Each of these disciplines offers some necessary description of the instrumentalities through which this research was conducted. A number of significant conclusions were drawn:
• Narratology understands that interpretive meaning is found in the content (what) the form (how), the authorship (who), the motivation (why) and the time (when) and place (where) of any given text (whether written or spoken).
• Narratology is always sceptical of conventional historical accounting (annals of facts), rather it questions the objectivity claim of dominant meta-narratives that embody a ‘disciplinary’ function which often silences and subjugates all counter- narratives that represent an alternative reality.
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• Narratology gives interpretative legitimacy to how ‘scripts’ of conflict or peace become preferred social constructions that are produced by the relational- behaviour interactions emanating from narrative discourse.
Section Three of this Chapter explored the notion of conflict as performance; the manufacturing of power through a skilful manipulation of stage-managed violence as an expressive and generative resource. This section illuminates three integrated peace- building frameworks: conceptions of conflict memory; intersections of temporal and spatial dimensions of conflict; and conflict as political theatre of struggle. The main findings were as follows:
• Conflict memory is nested in societal narrative discourse (chosen traumas and chosen glories) remembered history (oral traditions of ‘enemy formation’ passed on from one generation to the next), lived experience (personal, actual traumatic events) and interpretations of current conflict events (confirming partisan
perceptions).
• The geographical landscape, terrain or actual location (stage) where conflict is enacted is the place where time and space intersect in conflict.
• In the drama of violent conflict the antagonists are the actors, the public spaces are the stage sets, the rhetorical language are the scripts, and the symbolic paraphernalia utilised are the props required for an effective performance.
• Theatres of terror are violent performances that are both events aimed at making a statement of protest and acts aimed at trying to change reality.
• Terror campaigns are not just chaotic crisis scenarios, they provide a coherent habitat necessary to ‘mobilise power’ through the mask of violence.
• Terrorism needs a horrified audience in order to accomplish its purposes; not just any audience, but it must be a targeted group of people intimately connected to the aims of the terror campaign.
This literature review lays the groundwork to begin to comprehend how the narrative discourse used to justify the violence of Gukurahundi was socially crafted and politically reproduced by the ZANU-PF regime in order to solidify its power, appease the
international community and at the same time impose a violent script of terror, fear and
79 intimidation on the psychological and experiential life stories (texts) of the Matabeleland people in the early 1980s.
80 Chapter 3: Research Methodology – Surfacing Dominant and Subjugated Stories 3.1. Research Summary
The crux of this research study revolves around understanding the narratives (both dominant and subjugated discourses) surrounding the violence system as it was expressed in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe between the years of 1980-1988. This is accomplished by exploring the historical socio-political construction of five salient themes: ethnicity, nationalism, loyalty, legitimacy and unity. As a qualitative study it utilized an
‘interpretive-critical’ epistemological lens through which narrative discourse was analysed with a focus on content (meaning), structure (form) and performance (interaction)207.
The research engaged three different instruments of measurement: literature review; document analysis; and open interviews. The literature review explored the intersection between social conflict, narrative analysis and peace-building theory. In conducting document analysis a historical criticism frame was applied to review a broad range of historical-political documents from the time period in question. Thirty-five open interviews were conducted and drew from a purposive and peer-identified research sample as representative of eight sectors of society: political, ex-combatant, media, legal, education, church, women, and rural agricultural populations. These identified sectors featured most prominently in the literature review and document analysis inventory conducted around this conflict period in Matabeleland. The interview segment not only identified persons from these seven sectors, but they also represented a cross-section of social positions from former high ranking government officials to rural village farmers.
Research validity and verification measurements were based on instrument piloting, reflexivity, peer review, and corroboration of findings. This study extrapolates significant themes that buttressed the meta-narrative of repressive violence constructed by the ZANU-PF Government in the 1980s, unearths various silent scripts of counter narratives that existed in Matabeleland at that time and makes linkages between the surfacing of subjugated narratives and the need for constructing peace in the context of current day Zimbabwe.
207 Elliot, J. 2005. Using Narrative in Social Research – Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. London:
SAGE Publications, 38.
81 3.2. Epistemological Foundations of the Study
3.2.1. Qualitative and Quantitative Considerations
The substance of this study is the dissection of narrative discourse and its powerful influence on the “creation of preferred realities”208. Furthermore, this study is interested in how the clash of these contested, sometimes imagined realities is linked to the acting out of violence and the building of peace. Conflict studies are inherently complex because of the extremely unpredictable nature of human interaction in the midst of conflict situations. Thus, when researching conflict as social phenomena, great care must be given to the methodological plan. While many social conflicts have been studied with quantitative instruments, it is the bias of the author that qualitative research is the most appropriate approach to be utilised in the study of conflict phenomena. Quantitative research is effective when looking at units of statistical analysis such as the number of deaths in a certain locale209 or, when quantifying units of ideas held by certain segments of society (e.g. random survey methods that aim to test beliefs about particular forms of violence, or statistical incidence of specific violent acts in a cross-section of a nation, community, school or family).
However, when research moves into the perceptual realm of how and why people speak about, attach meaning to, and act out conflict realities other methods of
measurement are required. It is from this premise that this study embarked on a qualitative research design with narrative analysis as the core methodology. Narrative criticism, in general terms, concentrates its attention on the many points of view (implied authors, authorial narration, first-person author, third-person author, narrator, embedded narration, and voices) represented in the narrative text.210 The epistemological roots of narrative research (spanning from structured literary criticism frameworks211 to free-flow conversational analysis) thrive on patterns of inter-subjectivities, metaphor, symbol and
208 Freedman, J & Combs, G. 1996. Narrative Therapy – The Social Construction of Preferred Realities.
W. W. Norton & Company; New York.
209 Roberts, Lafta, Garfield, Khudhairi, & Bumham. Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq:
cluster sample survey. Lancet 2004; 364: 1857-64. (Published online October 29, 2004 – http://image.thelancet.com/extras/04art10342web.pdf )
210 Martin, W. 1986. Recent Theories of Narrative. Ithica & London: Cornell University Press, 135.
211 See Labov, W. (ed). 1972. The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; Burke, K. 1950. A Rhetoric of Motives. New York: Prentice-Hall; Gee, J.P. 1986. Units in the Production of Narrative Discourses. Discourse Processes.
82 myth212. These qualitative realities of ‘knowing’ are not quantifiable in objective,
measurable properties, nor are they independent of the observer (researcher) and his or her instruments213. Narrative research methodology inhabits an inherent qualitative bent.
3.2.2. Interpretive-Critical Lens
For purposes of narrowing the meaning of qualitative research, the underlying epistemology of this study is what may be termed an ‘Interpretive-critical’ approach to knowledge generation. The positivist approach to objective knowing asserts that there is measurable theory that stands alone waiting to be discovered outside of the practical application that transpires in subjective human interaction. In opposition to this, the interpretive-critical stance is concerned with two essential elements of learning. Firstly, the word ‘interpretive’ connotes a semiotic interest in the meaning of signs, symbols and metaphor. Interpretive researchers presume that “…access to reality is only through social constructions such as language, consciousness and shared meanings”214. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz called this rise of narrative research the “interpretive turn” in social sciences.215 Secondly, the word ‘critical’ denotes a hermeneutical interest in the meaning of texts. As in the words of Michael Myers, “Critical researchers assume that social reality is historically constituted and that it is produced and reproduced by people.”216 These two concepts twinned together in this study have become the conduit through which the contextual narrative discourse surrounding the Matabeleland conflict was researched and analysed. The narrative (story) invites us to the table of
interpretation, and the discourse (the meaning attached to story) beckons us to critically unpack its ingredients.
3.3. Research Analysis Modalities