Dialoguing hunger and survival during the Zimbabwe COVID-19 lockdowns through WhatsApp jokes

Abstract

This article analyses the dialogue on hunger and survival issues emanating from viral COVID-19-induced jokes circulated via WhatsApp during Zimbabwe’s consecutive lockdowns. The lockdowns were part of public health measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. They, however, disrupted the socio-economic activities in a largely informal economy. The jokes offer discursive spaces for ordinary people to engage with new socio-economic realities brought to bear by the lengthy lockdown. Focus is directed on jokes that speak to the socio-economic effects of the lockdowns on vulnerable urban groups, people earning a living in the informal sector and the attendant feelings of uncertainty, despair and frustration engendered by the lockdowns. Issues of socio-economic insecurity, food poverty and lack of social protection for poor and vulnerable urban groups had far-reaching implications for people’s capacity to heed health information calls by the state. This increased risks of creating virus hotspots in the country. In the context of a highly contagious virus, vulnerable urbanites had to resort to counterproductive strategies to evade public health protocols for survival. Purposively sampled jokes on the socio-economic impact of the lockdown on poor and vulnerable urban groups were selected from 15 joke groups. The article concludes that the analysis of the jokes is couched in the conceptualisation of social media spaces as Dariro/Dare (the ubiquitous circle) in which society engages with the pertinent issues of the day.