The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa
Post Correspondent
YOUNG researchers have called for the funding of their projects to enable their participation in the documentation of the nation’s narrative.
With calls being made for academics to add value in national development, young academics strongly feel that research will be the initial stage in closing any existing gaps.
In an interview following the recent publication of his academic paper ‘CheleVarakashi: English Premier League viewership and the resurfacing of political public sphere in Zimbabwe’s beer halls’ which has generated a lot of debate in academic circles, Mr Kudakwashe Henry Chidziya said apart from youths seeking employment, the youths can actively participate in research if resources are availed.
He also said researchers have a role to play in national development through addressing socio-economic issues.
“Our narratives should be recorded through the African lenses.
There is need for devolution funds and other resources to be channeled towards research.
“The Cyclone Idai tragedy, for example, has not been adequately covered and packaged through the local lenses, thereby resulting in that narrative being told from a foreign perspective.
“It is the duty of local academics to actively tell our own local story. We intend to revisit the biased narratives and tell the stories more accurately.
“Moreover, academic literature in tertiary institutions should include more of contemporary Zimbabwean scholars, not the foreign ones from the 1980s.
“This is the reason why we are working so hard to produce our own discourse,” he said.
Added Mr Chidziya: “Without knowledge we are doomed. As researchers, we have committed ourselves to extensively research and generate knowledge that can influence national development.
“We are the architects of our own national development. We no longer want prescribed development initiatives. We need to identify our own gaps and propose solutions through sound researches to compliment Government’s efforts,” he said.
Mr Chidziya’s journal was published in the International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Sciences (IJRISS) in July.
His paper focuses on the embedded political undertones produced and reproduced by English Premiership League (EPL) football viewers in Zimbabwe’s beer halls.
It explores the nexus of football fans’ viewership patterns, commentary and how these attitudes reflect on how football viewership reproduces underlying political fractures that exist in Zimbabwe.
