Alien-Nation

Note: I apologize for the late response and doubt anyone will read this before class, but here it goes:

The Comaroff's interpretation in Alien-Nation of how exactly zombism originated in South Africa presents an argument unfamiliar in zombie lore; the notion that Western influences on African culture are the primary culprit of the myth surrounding zombie tales and legends. As the Comaroffs state, conditions of an “Unprecedented mix of hope and hopelessness, promise and impossibility, [and] the new and the continuing” all led to general resentment to the colonials of the region who directly assaulted the local sense of morality and tradition. This attack led to an obvious confrontation and from this stemmed the theme of zombies in their society, which are quite literally direct representations of all the above conditions as a result of immigration to Africa.

However, what does this have to do with anything we've discussed in class? One might ask. I think it's important we remember to explore all facets of zombie lore as we would any other topic, really. For example, there appears to be a running theme of “the people” vs some larger force such as a the colonials in South Africa or some large corporation or government-funded experiments gone awry, both resulting in the appearance of zombies (albeit in Africa it was purely fictional, as in the modern-day film and literature). Perhaps the emotionless zombie focused purely on consuming everything it can is a play on the way our society operates... perhaps not.

It seems that zombie lore manifests not so much out of fear... but of disparity or of a loss of the ways of the past. The zombie world is one vastly different to our own in which we no longer control the world operates, in a sense, and are the minority against an overwhelming enemy. However, this really only takes place in the more recent zombie fictions of the past 60 years or so, whereas the zombies of old in South Africa are more linked to specific societal struggles the Africans faced by the onset of large-scale immigration. Ultimately, Alien-Nation sheds a new light on what zombies signify in deeper sense than just some cool dead-but-not-dead entity who's only real line of thought is “EAT”. By using the lessons learned from the Comaroffs, as a class we can more carefully attempt to understand what the zombie really represents, if anything at all.