It couldn't be anything innocent : Negotiating gender in patriarchal-racial spaces

The Rhodesian settler project depended on the co-operation with black men, and on the Othering of them. Masculinity was a vital part of this dou- ble movement of practical proximity and narrative distance; cross-racial co- operation between men concerning the control of women, and the sexuali- sation of the ‘African’. The racialised discourse on ‘African’ masculinity contributes to the preservation of distance between the African Other and the European Self. The latter generally evades being objectified and stud- ied, as it is itself the master of objectification of others. Consequently, sci- entific curiosity has mostly been directed towards those who are construct- ed as different and exotic (McFadden, 2000), rather than towards those who construe themselves as Norm. Research on white Zimbabweans is lacking. In this chapter we examine the performance, reproduction and contestation of masculinity among white Zimbabweans. Those white Zimbabweans whose voices are represented below belong to a rapidly shrinking category of Zimbabweans. They are Eurasian second generation commercial farm- ers. The voices are Peter, Beatrice, John, Louisa and Patricia’s. The inter- views were conducted in September and October 2000, on what were then their farms in eastern and northern Zimbabwe