Diaspora, domicile and debate: a preliminary artistic and cultural search for a Malawi identity from pre-colonial times to 2014

This paper traces representations and contestations of colonial and postcolonial Malawian identities through artistic and cultural discourses. I argue that the relevant identities were produced in several phases: first by pre-colonial dynamics; second by the colonising process producing an economic migrant population: third, by the post-independence Cabinet Crisis of 1964 and Dr Banda's dictatorship producing marginalised exiled dissidents and, by association, a marginalised Malawi Diaspora; and finally the post-1994 largely economic migration facilitated by globalisation and the freedom of movement. 1 will contend that a significant section of domiciled" elite, as opposed to rural Malawians, consider that 'Malawians', in the sense of citizenship rights, are only those domiciled in Malawi. Most Diaspora Malawians, however, consider themselves Malawian but face marginalisation through distance, denial of Malawi political and cultural rights as well as the questioning of their Malawian identity. This denial of rights, with aspects traceable to the colonial period, became sequentially more focused with the end of the Federation, attainment of independence, and as Dr Banda used it as a way of excluding troublesome political elements. This pattern of marginalising Diaspora Malawians has persisted despite economic ties and the 'unity of purpose' between domiciled and Diaspora opposition elements during the 1991 - 1994 transition to multiparty rule. Political, poetic, linguistic, musical, artistic and other cultural discourses are used to define and perpetuate the marginalisation. Though former long-term exiles, Dr Banda and Dr Mutharika recruited cultural discourses to marginalise external opponents. Paradoxically, any Diaspora Malawians who distinguish themselves in the arts, business, sport or other activities abroad is accorded "Malawian-ness'. The most significant relationship between domiciled and Diaspora Malawians remains economic and intellectual. Malawians in the Diaspora remit significant amounts of financial and intellectual resources and those domiciled in Malawi control all access to citizenship rights