Cartographies of Erasure: Epistemic Violence and the Restorationist Dilemma in Zimbabwe

Why do maps exist and what do they communicate? While it is common to assume that maps are depictions of truth, this project challenges that assumption. Maps in fact, create knowledge and shape how we think. A closer attention to maps reveals which epistemologies (systems of knowledge that shape how we know what we know) are privileged and which ones are marginalised. Colonial Cartography is particularly useful for understanding how colonisation shaped nationalist and post-colonial imagination in the decolonised world.

Often people say, "our liberation war heroes fought for Zimbabwe." But what does that mean? The idea of Zimbabwe exists in minds and ideas as much as it also exists as a territorially defined polity. So what do anti-colonial movements fight for? The nation as an idea or the nation as a territorial sphere? And how does the answer to this question shape post-colonial governance?

Post colonial state-making in Zimbabwe was not a return to pre-colonial traditions - spatial and governance practices (which are inextricably entwined) that were erased by colonizers were not
restored. On the contrary, it was a transfer of power to nationalists while retaining and perpetuating conventions of nation-state-making that fit into global norms. Examples of this are plentiful, including but not limited to; traditional chiefs being appointees of the government, bureaucratic practices of surveillance and record keeping; marriage, death, and births registry etc (Chigwata 2016.)
Unlike other African countries, there was no restoration of traditional royal households, like the House of Khumalo - agitation has been rising for the restoration of both the royal household and the Kingdom of Mthwakazi (Matare 2025.) If anything, the government of Zimbabwe continuously attacks and seeks to delegitimise the house of Khumalo.

The core question of this project is; Can pre-colonial polities like Mthwakazi claim nation-statehood and sovereignty under the contemporary world order (West-Phalian justificatory frameworks)?

This projects also analyses how the imagined nation of Mthwakazi which is sustained through restorationist discourses ,oral history and claims of cultural homogeneity gets mapped into a physical space which is territorial and is represented on maps. It highlights inconsistencies and incompatibilities between the imagined and the pragmatic which give key insights into the political problems of spaces and maps.