Critical Discourse and Conflict: Decoding Discursive Practices with Participants Previously Exposed to Politically Motivated Conflict

Abstract

This article uses critical discourse as a framework for decoding discourses of conflict with participants previously exposed to political violence in Zimbabwe. In this study a new approach was adopted that involved a consultative group (CG). The group served as an advisory group and guides to the research. This group’s role was to create a framework of data collection that included follow-up of known experiences, stories from the affected communities in Zimbabwe and documents that informed the researcher of the forms of discourses that developed out of the conflict in Zimbabwe. The preliminary thematic issues for study were derived from this advisory group. The discourses analysed were largely derived from 1982 to 1985 newspaper articles. The materials identified in the newspaper articles for the remaining years, were used in the analysis and interpret the data. The CG has its memory-based version. Conducting analysis and interpretation of the data from newspaper articles and related documents, the CGP demonstrated how the entrenchment of hegemony was developed and maintained.