Versions of violence: Zimbabwe's domestic violence law and symbolic politics of protection

bibliographic database
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Periodical article

Title:	Versions of violence: Zimbabwe's domestic violence law and symbolic politics of protection
Author:	Christiansen, Lene Bull
Year:	2010
Periodical:	Review of African Political Economy (ISSN 0305-6244)
Volume:	37
Issue:	126
Pages:	421-435
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Zimbabwe
Subjects:	political violence legitimacy legislation domestic violence gender discrimination
External link:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2010.530941
Abstract:	This article argues that political uses of violence and discursive representations of violence are part of a political discourse of legitimacy in politics in Zimbabwe, and that this discourse relies on a gendered power matrix in which acts of violence are depicted either as legitimate protection or as illegitimate aggression or terror. The analysis is based on public debates about domestic violence legislation and media representations of political uses of violence in 2006 and 2007. However, this is viewed as part of a longer history of political violence, entailing a symbolic politics of protection and political legitimacy, in which the protection of the nation's women figures as metonymy for 'the people' in need of protection. Bibliogr., notes, sum. [Journal abstract]