A PhD student in the African Language Studies Section in the School of Languages and Literatures, Mr Ignatius Mabasa, has been awarded a PhD for the first-ever thesis written in ChiShona at Rhodes University.
His thesis, titled “CHAVE CHEMUTENGURE VHIRI RENGORO: HUSARUNGANO NERWENDO RWENGANO DZEVASHONA. The folktale in confrontation with a changing world: a Shona storyteller’s autoethnography.” encompasses his story as a Shona folklorist and creative writer, and the story of the Shona people.
Mr Mabasa named several reasons why he decided to write his thesis in his mother tongue. He said, “The elephant must after his nature trumpet and not meow like a cat. I am a Shona storyteller, filmmaker and author who started telling stories before I could read or write.”
His thesis is also a revolt against attitudes that systematically deny Africans an agenda in their own land and languages. “The choice to use ChiShona is a response to the exclusion and marginalisation of othered knowledges. By using the Shona language, I am rethinking pedagogy and targeting a disenfranchised audience. Brutal colonial conquest and forced acculturation have disturbed and created insecure conditions for Africans. Africans have had other people tell their stories for them – othering them, judging them, labelling them, misrepresenting them. My thesis in Shona is part of unthinking Eurocentrism and searching for alternative epistemologies. The African cannot continue thinking as if he is still living in a colonial world, perpetuating colonial discourses and perspectives.”