This thesis aims to analyze the role of the cultural dimension in power production processes. Specifically, the research will look at the ways in which the nationalist discourse has influenced the definition of identity from the struggle for independence until the constitution of the one-party state in Zimbabwe.
The objective of this thesis is to investigate the discursive national identity of power and dissenting subjects and the change over the time from a culture of resistance to elaborating ethical, political and identity conceptions witch have become functional in the legitimation of authoritarian power.So, the purpose is to investigate the existence of asupposed link between the power and the nation's identity representation. Then, through categories of analysis of postcolonial studies, I will analyze two novels in order to understand how subjects perceived and reformulated the nationalist discourse on identity. The data have
led me to understand that nationalistic discourse on identity evolved during the time: during the struggle for independence nationalism became a narrative strategy, functional to the re-appropriation of the symbolic and cultural system of those who were placed in a subordinate position in the colonial system; Furthermore, nationalism constituted a rhetorical resource for power even after the achievement of independence. During this period, the theme of national unity was central in nationalist discourse, as it became functional to marginalize any form of opposition to the project of achieving a one-party state. In this way, nationalistic discourse and its identity attribution function underwent an evolution, as by a culture of resistance it became a discursive strategy for the establishment and preservation of authoritarian power.