Freeze! Movement, narrative and the disciplining of price in hyperinflationary Zimbabwe

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss the imposition of economy‐wide price controls in Zimbabwe in June 2007. The government’s immediate intent in doing so was to stop the ‘mad’ movement of hyperinflationary prices by ‘disciplining’ it into visibility – and hence controllability. A combination of police force and ‘scientific’ prescription was deployed in an effort to eliminate post‐production profiteering and affect a return to legitimate, transparent price‐regimes. A third technique was used as well: the policing of national history. By fitting price rises into a narrative frame of revolution and autochthony, government sought to give a name and a history to economic developments that seemed inherently erratic and inchoate. In effect, this ritual alignment of police force, price prescription and national narrative was an attempt to heal the nation by ridding it of accumulated foreign influences.