Destabilizing and subverting patriarchal and eurocentric notions of time: an analysis of Chenjerai Hove’s bones and ancestors

Abstract

This article explores the notion of time as conceptualized and articulated in Chenjerai Hove’s Bones and Ancestors. These texts, as this article sets out to demonstrate, are characterized by a deliberate attempt to subvert and transcend the Eurocentric and patriarchal notions of time as premised and predicated on linearity and progression. The authors argue, as is reflected in the texts, that these notions of time are a simplistic model and do not reflect the diversity that characterize and constitute human experience. These notions of time are premised on linearity and progression, and so they repress and stifle the existence of other and alternative narratives of history, time, and experience as demonstrated in the texts.