Causes, manifestations, and healing strategies for psychiatric conditions in Zimbabwean Short Drama - Mari Kushinga by ZIYA Cultural Arts

This paper presents a qualitative exploration of the representation of the causes, manifestations, and healing strategies of psychiatric conditions in Mari Kushinga, a contemporary Zimbabwean drama. Mental health challenges remain a pressing concern in present-day Zimbabwe, where increasing numbers of individuals exhibit symptoms of psychiatric distress. However, the underlying causes of these conditions often remain undiagnosed or are ambiguously interpreted, leading to uncertainty about appropriate therapeutic interventions. While many families turn to biomedical or postmodern methods of treatment, such as psychotropic medication, clinical counselling, and psychiatric institutionalisation, traditional explanatory models and healing systems continue to exert significant influence within communities. Drawing on Mari Kushinga (2024), a drama performed by ZIYA Cultural Arts Trust, popularly known as Vharazipi, this study interrogates how artistic performance mediates cultural understandings of mental illness. Anchored in the theoretical frameworks of postmodernism, psychiatry, and Afrocentricity, the analysis reveals that greed and the pursuit of ill-got wealth (kuromba/ukuthwala) are dramatised as principal causes of psychic disintegration. The drama further portrays traditional healing systems as central to restoring individual and communal equilibrium. The paper argues that Mari Kushinga serves not only as a mirror of contemporary Zimbabwean society but also as a critical site for negotiating the interface between indigenous epistemologies and modern psychiatric discourse.