American scholar, assistant English professor Jeanne-Marie Jackson of Johns Hopkins University, says she is currently carrying out research in Zimbabwe focusing on democracy in the southern African nation.
Jackson, who returned from Zimbabwe recently where she visited several towns, cities and rural areas, says her interest in writing an academic book, ‘Terms of Engagement: Form and Response in the Age of Post Democracy’, was influenced by an abundance of open Zimbabwean discussions on various issues on social media and other platforms.
Jackson says the research will look into democratic processes in the country, which are hardly understood by most Americans.
“Research at this stage means intensive Shona and then talking to as many writers and publishers as possible for the work that I am doing for a book at the moment,” she says.
“It looks at all these conversations about Zimbabwe as a failed state, obviously a very controversial term … not one that I am invested in any way …”
She tells Studio 7’s Gibbs Dube she is even a follower of Professor Jonathan Moyo’s Twitter feed, Alex Magaisa’s blog and other media threads.