ABSTRACT
In this chapter my concerns are with the widest range of linguistic and spatial representations of masculinities in Zimbabwe. My account is autobiographical and what I describe has my own experiences and memories as its referent. General terms like ‘Zimbabwean’, ‘Shona’ and ‘masculinity’ mask fragmentary contexts. There is no universalized ‘Zimbabweanness’ or ‘Shonaness’, just as there is no single, universalized masculinity. I use the term ‘masculinities’ here to examine male preoccupations as celebrations of ideals of maleness, pluralized to render a definition as fragmented as the many domains in which men are constructed as ‘men’ through language and space.
