Injurious Names: Naming, Disavowal, and Recuperation in Contexts of Slavery and Emancipation

Benson, Susan

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511499630.010

Cited by 11 publications

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“…When one group dominates and names members of another group, no fit between name and person is sought, and names, themselves, become injurious labels. Benson (:189, 191), for example, describes how African slaves in English households in the 18 th century often received mocking names of Imperial Roman origin such as Scipio, Caesar, Nero, and Pompey. The grandeur of such names was a source of humor for their masters because of the discrepancy between the slaves' names and material conditions.…”

Section: Duality Of Meaning and Power In Namesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The grandeur of such names was a source of humor for their masters because of the discrepancy between the slaves' names and material conditions. The power of names is also seen in Black Nationalists' urging African Americans, beginning in the 1960s, to discard their “slave names,” i.e., family names taken from slave‐era masters, leading “Malcolm Little,” for example, to become “Malcolm X” (Benson :195). Finally, in many societies, the names themselves are seen to contain power, e.g., through bringing luck or protecting the bearer from supernatural forces (Alford ).…”

Section: Duality Of Meaning and Power In Namesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Politics of Names among Chinese Indonesians in Java

Bailey

Lie

2013

J Linguistic Anthropol

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Many Chinese Indonesians under the age of 45 in Java have names that are instantly recognized by Indonesians as distinctively Chinese Indonesian. Such names, e.g., Nick Wijaya, commonly consist of a first name that is English or European and a family name that “sounds Indonesian,” was coined after 1965, and contains a syllable from a traditional Chinese surname. Distinctively Chinese Indonesian names are explained in terms of state and ethnic politics in Indonesia during the second half of the 20th century. A specific attribute of proper names that we call their “duality of meaning”—they are fixed to a person like a label at the same time that they continue to signify as more general linguistic signs—makes them particularly potent for social‐identity negotiations. Giving Western first names and using newly coined surnames containing Chinese elements has served both as a form of resistance to discriminatory Indonesian state assimilation policies and as a form of boundary‐marking for ethnic Chinese, who make up less than four percent of the Indonesian population. Western names connote cosmopolitan educational and socioeconomic aspirations for many Chinese Indonesians, characteristics that they value highly and perceive as distinguishing themselves from many other (non‐Chinese) Indonesians.

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Section: Duality Of Meaning and Power In Namesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Duality Of Meaning and Power In Namesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Names among Chinese Indonesians in Java

Bailey

Lie

2013

J Linguistic Anthropol

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“…What my Nuosu name really reinforced was the view that I was Fijy's fancy captive. Intriguingly, Benson points out that African slaves brought to eighteenth‐century Britain were also…”

Section: Captive Guests Taken By Rusementioning

confidence: 99%

The captive guest: spider webs of hospitality among the Nuosu of Southwest China

Swancutt

2012

Royal Anthropological Inst

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An unstable mode of hospitality underpins an important ethnographic finding among the Nuosu of Southwest China: namely the notion that each person ‘hosts’ his or her own soul, which takes the form of a ‘soul‐spider’ residing on the outer surface of the human body. Famous for their slaveholding practices, which were disbanded by the Chinese in 1956‐7, the Nuosu nowadays take ‘captive guests’, to underscore lineage rankings within their spidery cosmology. Exploring the captive position of outsiders – including anthropologists – to the Nuosu home, the paper gives a case study of an ‘inhospitable’ dispute between a shaman and his employer at an ethnological institute. Showing why every host wishes to prevent the captive guest from ever reciprocating his or her hospitality, the paper introduces the Nuosu ‘spider‐slave complex’, which entails gathering the fullness of life through attachments to the lineage, captive guests, and the person's own soul‐spider. Résumé Les matériaux ethnographiques recueillis auprès des Nuosu du Sud‐ouest de la Chine font apparaître un mode d’hospitalité instable : l’idée que chaque personne « héberge » son âme, sous la forme d’une « araignée de l’âme » résidant sur la surface externe du corps humain. Connus pour leurs pratiques esclavagistes abolies par les Chinois en 1956‐57, les Nuosu prennent aujourd’hui des « invités captifs » pour souligner les positions des lignages dans leur cosmologie arachnide. En réfléchissant à la captivité des étrangers, y compris les anthropologues, dans la maison nuosu, l’article présente le cas d’une controverse « inhospitalière » entre un chaman et son employeur dans un institut d’ethnologie. En montrant pourquoi les hôtes veulent toujours empêcher leurs invités captifs de leur rendre leur hospitalité, l’auteure décrit le « complexe esclave‐araignée » des Nuosu, qui implique que la plénitude de la vie s’obtient par des rattachements à son lignage, aux invités captifs, et à sa propre araignée de l’âme.

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“…Perhaps, however, the social power of naming and its capacity to shape the life course of the person named becomes most evident when it is used with the opposite intent: to injure rather than individuate. Such practices have long been integral to processes of colonization and enslavement, to the extent that societies built around empire and slavery develop recognizable onomastic systems and repertoires intended to mark out citizens from subjects and enslaved (Scott, Tehranian, and Mathias 2002;Benson 2006). As Saidiya Hartman has observed, "The classic figure of the slave is that of a stranger.…”

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confidence: 99%

From Enslavement to Emancipation: Naming Practices in the Danish West Indies

Abel

Tyson²,

Pálsson

2019

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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In most contexts, personal names function as identifiers and as a locus for identity. Therefore, names can be used to trace patterns of kinship, ancestry, and belonging. The social power of naming, however, and its capacity to shape the life course of the person named, becomes most evident when it has the opposite intent: to sever connections and injure. Naming in slave society was primarily practical, an essential first step in commodifying human beings so they could be removed from their roots and social networks, bought, sold, mortgaged, and adjudicated. Such practices have long been integral to processes of colonization and enslavement. This paper discusses the implications of naming practices in the context of slavery, focusing on the names given to enslaved Africans and their descendants through baptism in the Lutheran and Moravian churches in the Danish West Indies. Drawing on historiographical accounts and a detailed analysis of plantation and parish records from the island of St. Croix, we outline and contextualize these patterns and practices of naming. We examine the extent to which the adoption of European and Christian names can be read as an effort toward resistance and self-determination on the part of the enslaved. Our account is illuminated by details from the lives of three former slaves from the Danish West Indies.

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Injurious Names: Naming, Disavowal, and Recuperation in Contexts of Slavery and Emancipation

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

The Politics of Names among Chinese Indonesians in Java

The Politics of Names among Chinese Indonesians in Java

The captive guest: spider webs of hospitality among the Nuosu of Southwest China

From Enslavement to Emancipation: Naming Practices in the Danish West Indies

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