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

Abstract

This article argues that political uses of violence and discursive representations of violence are part of a political discourse of legitimacy in Zimbabwean politics, 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.