Chisi Chako Masimba Mashoma/Kunzi Pakata Sandi Kunzi Ridza: Anthropological Musings on the Coloniality of Dispossession in Africa

Abstract

Africans need to be careful with discourses on coloniality that avoid dealing with central aberrations of colonialism. Focusing on coloniality of power, coloniality of being, coloniality of knowledge and coloniality of gender, contemporary discourses on coloniality sidestepped a central aspect of colonialism. Motivated not by quests to merely exercise power, as is assumed in coloniality of power; and motivated not merely by quests to dominate Africans using knowledge, as is assumed in coloniality of knowledge; and motivated not ultimately by the quest for gender domination, as is assumed in the coloniality of gender, colonialists dispossessed colonized people. Reviewing literature and using the Shona (a people of Zimbabwe) proverbs chisi chako masimba mashoma/kunzi pakata sandi kunzi ridza (one should not exercise power over what one does not own/possession is not synonymous with ownership), this paper postulates the notion of coloniality of dispossession. The paper concludes that power is merely a tool to dispossess colonized people, and so decolonial scholarship must focus not only on tools used to colonize other people but on the ultimate goals of using tools, such as power.