Joram Tarusarira
Biographic Data
| ID | 1225262 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joram Tarusarira |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joram |
| FAMILY NAME | Tarusarira |
| SIGNATURE | TARUSARIRA J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Groningen |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3235-683X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 26 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Do I look like a refugee? Challenging the passive victim narrative of refugeehood in Tongogara refugee settlement
This article examines refugee framing and agency in the context of protracted displacement in Zimbabwe, drawing on research conducted in Tongogara Refugee Settlement (TRS) in December 2024. Using Giddens’ structuration theory and Brun’s concept of active agency-in-waiting, it employs qualitative methods, including in-depth discussions and observations with 24 refugees. Findings show that refugees navigate restrictive policies by engaging in the i…
The continuity of military identity in civilian work-places: Former Ugandan soldiers in Uganda
The Impact of Climate-Related Security Risks on Community Values: Insights from Zambia’s Southern Province
This article explores the impact of climate-related security risks on community values and how that impact influences responses to the risks. Research and practice have paid little attention to how non-material and subjective conditions, especially values, mediate the climate-security nexus. We focused on the impact of land conflicts and food insecurity (as examples of climate-related security risks) on community values through a study of two rur…
Intersections of Religion and Climate-Related Security Risks: Insights from a Systematic Review
This study explored the significance of religion in the climate security discussion. Despite being extensively explored in conflict studies, the role of religion in climate security discourse is still largely overlooked. This is surprising, given that it significantly impacts decision-making during crises. The intersection of climate change and religious beliefs and diversity exacerbates conflicts across Africa. Recent studies have highlighted th…
The Palgrave Handbook of Religion, Peacebuilding, and Development in Africa
This Handbook explores how religion has been applied in situations of war and conflicts to contribute to peacebuilding and development efforts in Africa.
Religion and Inequality in Africa
This volume reveals how religion interfaces with inequality in different African contexts. Some contributors undertake detailed analyses of how religion creates (and justifies) different forms of inequality that holds back individuals, groups and communities across the continent from flourishing, while others show how religion can also mitigate inequality in Africa. Topics addressed include gender inequality, economic inequality, disability, agei…
Religion-Regime Relations in Zimbabwe: Co-operation and Resistance
Religious Environmental Sensemaking in Climate-Induced Conflicts
This article used the case of the Pokot community in northern Kenya to argue that focusing only on technical approaches in dealing with conflicts induced by climate change neglects the deeper religio-spiritual mechanisms that motivate actors in such conflicts and give the latter their texture. For example, the sacred connection with cattle, forests, and land, or the spiritual blessings of cattle raiders in times of competition over dwindling reso…
The grass versus the people: Sacred roots of environmental conflict in the Chilonga communal lands in Zimbabwe
This article analyses a conflict that erupted in 2021 between the government of Zimbabwe and the people of Chilonga in the south of the country over the expropriation of their ancestral for the production of lucerne grass. The people of Chilonga resisted being displaced from land to which they are deeply attached and have a sacred connection. This conflict provides a rare opportunity to analyze the often marginalized, muted and misunderstood sacr…
Themes in Religion and Human Security in Africa
The Zimbabwean state and the case of Robert Mugabe in power
This chapter focuses on religion has obscured the role of secularism, despite Zimbabwe being a secular state, and looks at how secularism has set the terms for the interaction between religion and politics. It focuses on former President Robert Mugabe and his regime, this chapter questions the interaction between religion and politics in Zimbabwe differently. The chapter argues that more than religion, secularism has shaped the field of religion …
Religious Politics in Africa: Fasting for Politics, or Political Fasting in Zimbabwe
In the post-colonial history of presidential aspirants in Zimbabwe, no politician has been as overtly religious as Nelson Chamisa, the current leader of the Movement for Democratic Change ( MDC ). Chamisa identifies himself as a politician and a pastor whose politics are guided by his Christian faith. However, he took religious rhetoric to mobilise support to an unprecedented level when he explicitly blurred the boundaries between functions by ca…
Religion and Coloniality in Diplomacy
A wide range of contemporary policy issues tied to religion continue to be informed by the legacies of colonialism; among them security and terrorism, the promotion of freedom of religion and belief (FoRB), gender equality, sexuality, and reproductive rights. This essay distinguishes the historical period of colonialism from coloniality: the ongoing presence of structures and relationships of power created through the practices of colonialism. Th…
When Piety Is Not Enough: Religio-Political Organizations in Pursuit of Peace and Reconciliation in Zimbabwe
In post-independence Zimbabwe, religion has been associated with piety and acquiescence rather than radical confrontation. This has made it look preposterous for religious leaders to adopt seemingly radical and confrontational stances in pursuit of peace and reconciliation. Since the early 2000s, a new breed of religious leaders that deploy radical and confrontational strategies to pursue peace has emerged in Zimbabwe. Rather than restricting pat…
Examining Pastor Evan Mawarire’s #ThisFlag movement in Zimbabwe
This chapter examines Pastor Evan Mawarire’s #ThisFlag movement in the context of religion and human security in Zimbabwe. It argues that the rapid expansion and popularity of the movement provides valuable insights into how religious groups can capitalise on their innate appeal and framing of human security, as well as pre-existing grievances and fault lines to challenge the authority of the state in particular contexts. Further, the chapter exa…
Religion and Human Security in Africa
The Anatomy of Apology and Forgiveness: Towards Transformative Apology and Forgiveness
The central thesis of this article is that while apology and forgiveness are vital for dealing with a violent past, there is a need to critically transform the sociopolitical epistemic subjectivities that underpin a wrongdoing. These include political discourses, narratives, ideas and ideologies that justified the wrongdoing in the first place and are thus its bedrock. This is against the understanding that brutality and violence are sustained by…
When Soldiers’ Survival Became Spiritual: Ugandan Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan war
This paper examines military landscapes as a source of violence, and soldiers’ efforts to deal with this violence by using their spiritual beliefs. The paper reveals how Ugandan soldiers who fought in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan believed that their survival in war was a consequence of their spiritual beliefs in God rather than the mighty power of the gun and their military knowledge. The paper is based on life histories…
Rituals, healing and consolation in post-conflict environments
This chapter discusses how the people of the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces in Western Zimbabwe have dealt with the legacies of the state massacre called Gukurahundi, a Shona word for 'the rains that wash away the chaff'. It addresses the role of rituals associated with the dead among the Ndebele as pathways towards healing and consolation, although it makes occasional references to the Shona culture, which is also found in Zimbabwe and whic…
African Religion, Climate Change, and Knowledge Systems
This article argues that as humanity is now changing the composition of the atmosphere at a rate that is very exceptional on the geological time scale, resulting in global warming, humans must deal with climate change holistically, including the often overlooked religion factor. Human‐caused climate change has resulted primarily from changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but also from changes in small particles (aerosols),…
Subject Formation, Fundamentalism and Instrumentalist Nationalism in Zimbabwean politics
This article argues that despite presiding over a failed economy, the Zimbabwe African Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) led by Robert Mugabe, has willing and enthusiastic supporters. There are claims that the large crowds witnessed singing and dancing at ZANU PF rallies are mobilized by force because the attendees do not benefit anything from supporting the regime. In a divergence from the consensus of the literature, this article surfaces other e…
Reconciliation and Religio-political Non-conformism in Zimbabwe
Religio-political organisations in Zimbabwe play an important role in advocating democratisation and reconciliation, against acquiescent, silenced or co-opted mainstream churches. Reconciliation and Religio-political Non-conformism in Zimbabwe analyses activities of religious organisations that deviate from the position of mainline churches and the political elites with regard to religious participation in political matters, against a background …
Christianity, Resistance and Conflict Resolution in Zimbabwe
This chapter explores the dynamics of Christianity in the midst of oppression, repression and conflict in the history of Zimbabwe. It argues that in both colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, Christian actors have played dynamic roles with some working in collaboration with the perpetrators of violence and fanning conflict, while others resisted and/or intervened to resolve the conflicts. The history of Christianity in the political sphere in Zimb…
The Anatomy of Apology and Forgiveness: Towards Transformative Apology and Forgiveness
The central thesis of this article is that while apology and forgiveness are vital for dealing with a violent past, there is a need to critically transform the sociopolitical epistemic subjectivities that underpin a wrongdoing. These include political discourses, narratives, ideas and ideologies that justified the wrongdoing in the first place and are thus its bedrock. This is against the understanding that brutality and violence are sustained by…
The grass versus the people: Sacred roots of environmental conflict in the Chilonga communal lands in Zimbabwe
This article analyses a conflict that erupted in 2021 between the government of Zimbabwe and the people of Chilonga in the south of the country over the expropriation of their ancestral for the production of lucerne grass. The people of Chilonga resisted being displaced from land to which they are deeply attached and have a sacred connection. This conflict provides a rare opportunity to analyze the often marginalized, muted and misunderstood sacr…
When Piety Is Not Enough: Religio-Political Organizations in Pursuit of Peace and Reconciliation in Zimbabwe
In post-independence Zimbabwe, religion has been associated with piety and acquiescence rather than radical confrontation. This has made it look preposterous for religious leaders to adopt seemingly radical and confrontational stances in pursuit of peace and reconciliation. Since the early 2000s, a new breed of religious leaders that deploy radical and confrontational strategies to pursue peace has emerged in Zimbabwe. Rather than restricting pat…
Religious Politics in Africa: Fasting for Politics, or Political Fasting in Zimbabwe
In the post-colonial history of presidential aspirants in Zimbabwe, no politician has been as overtly religious as Nelson Chamisa, the current leader of the Movement for Democratic Change ( MDC ). Chamisa identifies himself as a politician and a pastor whose politics are guided by his Christian faith. However, he took religious rhetoric to mobilise support to an unprecedented level when he explicitly blurred the boundaries between functions by ca…
Religion and Coloniality in Diplomacy
A wide range of contemporary policy issues tied to religion continue to be informed by the legacies of colonialism; among them security and terrorism, the promotion of freedom of religion and belief (FoRB), gender equality, sexuality, and reproductive rights. This essay distinguishes the historical period of colonialism from coloniality: the ongoing presence of structures and relationships of power created through the practices of colonialism. Th…
When Soldiers’ Survival Became Spiritual: Ugandan Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan war
This paper examines military landscapes as a source of violence, and soldiers’ efforts to deal with this violence by using their spiritual beliefs. The paper reveals how Ugandan soldiers who fought in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan believed that their survival in war was a consequence of their spiritual beliefs in God rather than the mighty power of the gun and their military knowledge. The paper is based on life histories…
The continuity of military identity in civilian work-places: Former Ugandan soldiers in Uganda
Christianity, Resistance and Conflict Resolution in Zimbabwe
This chapter explores the dynamics of Christianity in the midst of oppression, repression and conflict in the history of Zimbabwe. It argues that in both colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, Christian actors have played dynamic roles with some working in collaboration with the perpetrators of violence and fanning conflict, while others resisted and/or intervened to resolve the conflicts. The history of Christianity in the political sphere in Zimb…
Reconciliation and Religio-political Non-conformism in Zimbabwe
Religio-political organisations in Zimbabwe play an important role in advocating democratisation and reconciliation, against acquiescent, silenced or co-opted mainstream churches. Reconciliation and Religio-political Non-conformism in Zimbabwe analyses activities of religious organisations that deviate from the position of mainline churches and the political elites with regard to religious participation in political matters, against a background …
African Religion, Climate Change, and Knowledge Systems
This article argues that as humanity is now changing the composition of the atmosphere at a rate that is very exceptional on the geological time scale, resulting in global warming, humans must deal with climate change holistically, including the often overlooked religion factor. Human‐caused climate change has resulted primarily from changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but also from changes in small particles (aerosols),…
Subject Formation, Fundamentalism and Instrumentalist Nationalism in Zimbabwean politics
This article argues that despite presiding over a failed economy, the Zimbabwe African Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) led by Robert Mugabe, has willing and enthusiastic supporters. There are claims that the large crowds witnessed singing and dancing at ZANU PF rallies are mobilized by force because the attendees do not benefit anything from supporting the regime. In a divergence from the consensus of the literature, this article surfaces other e…
Rituals, healing and consolation in post-conflict environments
This chapter discusses how the people of the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces in Western Zimbabwe have dealt with the legacies of the state massacre called Gukurahundi, a Shona word for 'the rains that wash away the chaff'. It addresses the role of rituals associated with the dead among the Ndebele as pathways towards healing and consolation, although it makes occasional references to the Shona culture, which is also found in Zimbabwe and whic…
Examining Pastor Evan Mawarire’s #ThisFlag movement in Zimbabwe
This chapter examines Pastor Evan Mawarire’s #ThisFlag movement in the context of religion and human security in Zimbabwe. It argues that the rapid expansion and popularity of the movement provides valuable insights into how religious groups can capitalise on their innate appeal and framing of human security, as well as pre-existing grievances and fault lines to challenge the authority of the state in particular contexts. Further, the chapter exa…
Religion and Human Security in Africa
The Anatomy of Apology and Forgiveness: Towards Transformative Apology and Forgiveness
The central thesis of this article is that while apology and forgiveness are vital for dealing with a violent past, there is a need to critically transform the sociopolitical epistemic subjectivities that underpin a wrongdoing. These include political discourses, narratives, ideas and ideologies that justified the wrongdoing in the first place and are thus its bedrock. This is against the understanding that brutality and violence are sustained by…
When Soldiers’ Survival Became Spiritual: Ugandan Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan war
This paper examines military landscapes as a source of violence, and soldiers’ efforts to deal with this violence by using their spiritual beliefs. The paper reveals how Ugandan soldiers who fought in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan believed that their survival in war was a consequence of their spiritual beliefs in God rather than the mighty power of the gun and their military knowledge. The paper is based on life histories…
Themes in Religion and Human Security in Africa
The Zimbabwean state and the case of Robert Mugabe in power
This chapter focuses on religion has obscured the role of secularism, despite Zimbabwe being a secular state, and looks at how secularism has set the terms for the interaction between religion and politics. It focuses on former President Robert Mugabe and his regime, this chapter questions the interaction between religion and politics in Zimbabwe differently. The chapter argues that more than religion, secularism has shaped the field of religion …
Religious Politics in Africa: Fasting for Politics, or Political Fasting in Zimbabwe
In the post-colonial history of presidential aspirants in Zimbabwe, no politician has been as overtly religious as Nelson Chamisa, the current leader of the Movement for Democratic Change ( MDC ). Chamisa identifies himself as a politician and a pastor whose politics are guided by his Christian faith. However, he took religious rhetoric to mobilise support to an unprecedented level when he explicitly blurred the boundaries between functions by ca…
Religion and Coloniality in Diplomacy
A wide range of contemporary policy issues tied to religion continue to be informed by the legacies of colonialism; among them security and terrorism, the promotion of freedom of religion and belief (FoRB), gender equality, sexuality, and reproductive rights. This essay distinguishes the historical period of colonialism from coloniality: the ongoing presence of structures and relationships of power created through the practices of colonialism. Th…
When Piety Is Not Enough: Religio-Political Organizations in Pursuit of Peace and Reconciliation in Zimbabwe
In post-independence Zimbabwe, religion has been associated with piety and acquiescence rather than radical confrontation. This has made it look preposterous for religious leaders to adopt seemingly radical and confrontational stances in pursuit of peace and reconciliation. Since the early 2000s, a new breed of religious leaders that deploy radical and confrontational strategies to pursue peace has emerged in Zimbabwe. Rather than restricting pat…
The grass versus the people: Sacred roots of environmental conflict in the Chilonga communal lands in Zimbabwe
This article analyses a conflict that erupted in 2021 between the government of Zimbabwe and the people of Chilonga in the south of the country over the expropriation of their ancestral for the production of lucerne grass. The people of Chilonga resisted being displaced from land to which they are deeply attached and have a sacred connection. This conflict provides a rare opportunity to analyze the often marginalized, muted and misunderstood sacr…
Religious Environmental Sensemaking in Climate-Induced Conflicts
This article used the case of the Pokot community in northern Kenya to argue that focusing only on technical approaches in dealing with conflicts induced by climate change neglects the deeper religio-spiritual mechanisms that motivate actors in such conflicts and give the latter their texture. For example, the sacred connection with cattle, forests, and land, or the spiritual blessings of cattle raiders in times of competition over dwindling reso…
The Palgrave Handbook of Religion, Peacebuilding, and Development in Africa
This Handbook explores how religion has been applied in situations of war and conflicts to contribute to peacebuilding and development efforts in Africa.
Religion and Inequality in Africa
This volume reveals how religion interfaces with inequality in different African contexts. Some contributors undertake detailed analyses of how religion creates (and justifies) different forms of inequality that holds back individuals, groups and communities across the continent from flourishing, while others show how religion can also mitigate inequality in Africa. Topics addressed include gender inequality, economic inequality, disability, agei…
Religion-Regime Relations in Zimbabwe: Co-operation and Resistance
The Impact of Climate-Related Security Risks on Community Values: Insights from Zambia’s Southern Province
This article explores the impact of climate-related security risks on community values and how that impact influences responses to the risks. Research and practice have paid little attention to how non-material and subjective conditions, especially values, mediate the climate-security nexus. We focused on the impact of land conflicts and food insecurity (as examples of climate-related security risks) on community values through a study of two rur…
Intersections of Religion and Climate-Related Security Risks: Insights from a Systematic Review
This study explored the significance of religion in the climate security discussion. Despite being extensively explored in conflict studies, the role of religion in climate security discourse is still largely overlooked. This is surprising, given that it significantly impacts decision-making during crises. The intersection of climate change and religious beliefs and diversity exacerbates conflicts across Africa. Recent studies have highlighted th…
The continuity of military identity in civilian work-places: Former Ugandan soldiers in Uganda
Do I look like a refugee? Challenging the passive victim narrative of refugeehood in Tongogara refugee settlement
This article examines refugee framing and agency in the context of protracted displacement in Zimbabwe, drawing on research conducted in Tongogara Refugee Settlement (TRS) in December 2024. Using Giddens’ structuration theory and Brun’s concept of active agency-in-waiting, it employs qualitative methods, including in-depth discussions and observations with 24 refugees. Findings show that refugees navigate restrictive policies by engaging in the i…
Political science (20 works) · Sociology (13 works) · African studies and sociopolitical issues (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Religion, Society, and Development (10 works) · Geography (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Law (5 works) · Political economy (5 works) · History (4 works)