Journal of Humanities

Foreword to Journal of Humanities Special Issue: Normalising “incompleteness” through Sino-Malawi Cultural Exchanges

Asante Lucy Mtenje — 2024-09-04

No abstract

The animal-morality nexus in Malawian Chewa, ethnic Zhuang and French proverbs

Beaton Galafa — 2024-09-04

Metaphoricity in the world’s oral literature thrives through human interaction with nature. From this interaction emerges the aspect of animality, which is vital in our moral interpretation of proverbs. The paper explores how the Chewa in Malawi, the ethnic Zhuang of China and the French deploy animal metaphors in proverbs to navigate morality in the society. Through metaphors, certain animals in selected proverbs represent diverse moral experiences, such as unity of purpose, courage and bravery, virtue and life’s fluctuating seasons. These experiences emerge as common themes in the proverbs under study from across the three societies. In the article, the proverbs are generated from multiple sources. The Chewa proverbs are sourced from the author’s own knowledge as a native Chichewa speaker. The ethnic Zhuang proverbs are entirely drawn from Zhou’s (2016) publication on Zhuang proverbs. For the French proverbs, the author relies on both his knowledge in French/francophone studies and other oral sources. With the aid of Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the paper discusses the possible interpretation of the animal metaphors in the proverbs and their applicability within the context of human morality.

Explanatory models and treatment practices of mental illnesses among traditional healers in Blantyre, Malawi

Demoubly Kokota — 2024-09-04

This study aimed to explore explanatory models and treatment practices for mental illness/ bio-psycho-social disability by traditional healers in Blantyre, Malawi. The study adopted an exploratory design using qualitative methods. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data. It was conducted in Blantyre, a district in southern Malawi. Participants were traditional healers practising in the district. Purposive sampling was used to select the study sample. In total, ten indepth interviews and two focus group discussions were conducted. The sample was determined based on data saturation. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data aided by Nvivo 12. Four themes were identified in the data: presentation of a person with mental illness; types of mental illness; causes of mental illness; and management modalities. The findings show that although traditional healers are capable of recognizing mental illnesses, it is patients exhibiting significant behavioural disturbances that are mostly identified. Supernatural attributions and management dominated. Mistrust of the allopathic health system also exists among the healers.

The potential of museums and cultural heritage centres in facilitating the Sino- Malawi diplomacy

Mwayi Lusaka — 2024-09-04

This paper explores the potential of museums and cultural heritage centers in facilitating Sino- Malawi diplomacy. Studies elsewhere have shown that heritage plays an important role in diplomacy between nations. Desktop survey, interviews, exhibition analysis and archival research were used to collect data to determine the potential of museums and cultural heritage centers in diplomacy. The paper engaged with cultural diplomacy as its theoretical and analytical framework. This paper notes that lack of a centralized national museum in the Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe, and the lack of initiatives to engage community museums and local cultural heritage centers hinder efforts at cultural exchange which is crucial for promoting cultural diplomacy between China and Malawi. The paper argues that proper and adequate engagement with a national museum and cultural heritage centers have a potential to reinforce good relations between China and Malawi through cultural exchange framed as cultural diplomacy.

The role of social support and socio‑demographic factors in predicting intercultural adjustment among Malawian international graduates in China

Flemmings Fishani Ngwira — 2024-09-04

International students face challenges as they adjust to their living and learning ways in their new environment. The study aimed to examine the level of acculturative stress and social support Malawian international students in China experienced. The study further wanted to determine the role of social support on students’ acculturation. A sample of 163 Malawian international graduates were recruited to participate in the study. The Acculturative Stress Scale for International Students (ASSIS) was employed to assess graduates’ perceived discrimination, homesickness, perceived hate, fear, cultural shock, guilt, and miscellaneous stressors. Further,
the Multidimensional Scale for Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) was used to measure graduates’ level of social support from friends and family members. Data collected from this study was analysed using IBM^® SPSS^® statistics version 22. Findings indicated that Malawian graduates did not experience high acculturative stress. Nonetheless, homesickness, perceived discrimination, and cultural shock were their topmost reported sources of acculturative stress. Demographic characteristics such as length of stay, age, education, and marital status were also found to influence stress. Social support was also found to be associated with lower levels of acculturative
stress. These findings have critical implications for educators and administrators of international students, and Malawian students in China.

Decoloniality and cultural promotion in selected Malawian plays

Smith Likongwe — 2024-09-04

Various cultural as well as religious beliefs and indigenous performance traditions were condemned as pagan rites and almost forced into extinction through the coming in of Christianity and colonialism in Malawi (Nyasaland). These included spirit mediums that would be invoked upon to intervene in the bringing of rains through performances by designated rainmakers, in addition to transmitting messages received in a state of ecstasis. There was also the invocation of beliefs in other gods and the promotion of the existence of only one God and one medium in the name of Jesus Christ. The condemnation of indigenous cultural and religious beliefs in mainstream dramatic literature has promoted epistemological coloniality in various aspects. The resultant praxis has been the eradication of knowledge systems (epistemicide), as well as the suffocation of indigenous culture (culturecide). The challenge is that generations born after colonialism and Christianity eschew their own cultural beliefs under the guise of modernity. Through critical discourse analysis, this article analyses the attempts of two selected playwrights in decoloniality of knowledge and speaking back for indigenous Malawian cultural and religious beliefs. The critical discourse analysis is done through script analysis of Steve Chimombo’s The Rainmaker and Du Chisiza Jr’s Nyamirandu. A reading of the two scripts surfaces decoloniality and cultural promotion. Through the results of this research, it shall be seen how some plays have engaged with coloniality and fronted indigenous cultural beliefs.

Why are we here? Existentialism in local Malawian lore

Damazio Mfune-Mwanjakwa — 2024-09-04

The relationship between Africa and China is certainly gaining traction at the moment, and with this development it becomes imperative to examine the various facets that constitute what may arguably be Africa’s most important relationship of the 21st Century. One facet among the many is that of inter-racialism. China’s largescale direct contact with Blacks is a relatively recent occurrence, certainly not long enough for the Chinese to have formed their own definitive independent opinion of the Black race. However, as a result of China’s increasing exposure to the Western world, this exposure comes with the baggage of centuries of Western denigration of Blacks through various kinds of media – satellite tv, social media, magazines, newspapers, etc. that seek to exclude Blacks from the polity of human civilisations. According to Western measures of civilisation, the trajectory of civilisation has been the progression from pre-modernism (uncivilised), through modernism (Enlightenment), to post-modernism, this last being widely viewed as civilisation’s apogee. A definitive precursor to the post-modern condition, and which also came to define its fervour and texture, is a branch of philosophy called “Existentialism”. Adopting a post-colonial stance, and taking up the West on their offer of the trajectory of human civilisation, though clearly not the only one, what forms the core argument of the paper is that, as demonstrated by analyses of the local lores themselves, since time immemorial, Blacks, generally, and Malawians, in particular, have been capable of achieving such vaunted forms of introspection – and more.