Rhodes, Mugabe and the Politics of Commemorative Toponyms in Zimbabwe

Mangena, Tendai

doi:10.1080/14650045.2018.1508017

Cited by 12 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Mnangagwa's government introduced aspects of novelty to the process of commemorating the past that marked a break from the Mugabe tradition. The reinscription efforts of the cultural landscape by the Mugabe regime has received adequate scholarly attention on onomastic studies in Zimbabwe (see, for example, Mamvura and Mashiri 2016;Mamvura et al 2017Mamvura et al , 2018Mamvura 2019;Mangena 2018;Pfukwa 2018). There is no study, to the best of the researcher's knowledge, that has looked at the place renaming exercise by the Mnangagwa administration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Kutonga Kwaro Gamba’: Politics and the renaming of defence cantonments in the ‘Second Republic’ in Zimbabwe

Mamvura

2020

GeoJournal

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Like Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa, Zimbabwe was one of the countries that the imperial mission had targeted to establish as a settler economy. The objective of creating a white settler colony was evident in the entire colonial system, including place naming. Generally, place naming served political functions of declaring power and authority over the entire colony. While white minority rule ended in 1980, it, however, left some symbolic imprints on the cultural landscape of the independent nation, Zimbabwe. Given that colonialism entrenched white identity on the cultural landscape, this article interrogates efforts by the Mnangagwa government, which assumed political office in November 2017, to dislodge Rhodesian memory from the cultural landscape. This article demonstrates that decolonisation is not an event but an ongoing process that political elites execute whenever they want to serve present political purposes. It interrogates the dialectics of political power and remembering the past in Zimbabwe during the aftermath of the military-induced political change of November 2017. The re-inscription of the landscape that the Mnangagwa regime executed specifically targeted military cantonments throughout the country. This decolonisation process was ostensibly done to dismantle white identities from the cultural landscape. However, this article argues that the place renaming exercise served to write back the liberation war legacy into mainstream history, symbolically declared the regime’s political power, and served to legitimise the political status quo. These political purposes had roots in the succession race and the internal party politics within the Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front (ZANU- PF) that preceded the political transition.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Kutonga Kwaro Gamba’: Politics and the renaming of defence cantonments in the ‘Second Republic’ in Zimbabwe

Mamvura

2020

GeoJournal

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“…It is surprising why Mugabe maintained such English names for these suburbs. Mangena (2018) opines that Mugabe had a fetish for English architecture, language and culture, which was depicted in the way he dressed and talked. On the whole, English names were associated with modernity and some form of social prestige such that the English names remained in the previously white suburbs, which were now occupied by the new political elite.…”

Section: A Predictable Tragedy: Robertmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mugabeism has been widely used by political scientists in their analysis of political economy in governing the country (Mararike, 2018;Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015), while scholars such as Tendi (2020) focus on the mysteries of the 'coup'. Mugabeism has also been largely dominated with studies relating to culture and toponyms (Mamvura et al, 2018;Mangena, 2018). It seems there is a lacuna concerning Mugabeism and urban development through the lens of a postcolonial theory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mugabe’s Urban Legacy: A Postcolonial Perspective on Urban Development in Harare, Zimbabwe

Matamanda

2020

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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Robert Gabriel Mugabe resigned as the President of Zimbabwe in 2017 after being in office since 1980 when Zimbabwe gained independence from British colonial rule. Mugabe implemented various policies that impacted on the urbanscape of Zimbabwe. Using a desktop approach that is based on bibliography research, the study examines Mugabe’s urban legacy through the lenses of postcolonial theory and the concept of Mugabeism. The results show that power was a dominant feature in Mugabe’s legacy, as he used it to influence the socio-spatial configuration of the urban scape whenever he saw it befitting. His power was rooted in corruption, clientism, patronage, state capture and sanctioning of opponents. Essentially, Mugabe perpetuated the colonial city, in that the postcolonial city was a replication of the socio-spatial segregation which existed during the colonial era, yet this time round it was based on class and not race.

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“…This study acknowledges that research, though scant, that directly or indirectly focuses on place (re)naming in Zimbabwe during the period of political transition from colonialism to independence exists. The running thread in this body of research is that the new government, under Mugabe, instituted a place-renaming exercise to supplant colonial identities and create a national identity for the new nation (Chabata, 2007(Chabata, , 2012Mamvura, 2020a;Mangena, 2018;Mashiri and Chabata, 2010;Mushati, 2013;Pfukwa, 2012Pfukwa, , 2018. The grand objectives of the place-renaming process were decolonisation and construction of a new identity for the new nation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Is Mugabe Also Among the National Deities and Kings?’: Place Renaming and the Appropriation of African Chieftainship Ideals and Spirituality in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

Mamvura

2021

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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This article examines the elite construction of cultural landscapes in Harare. Since assuming the reins of power in the Zimbabwe African Nation Union (ZANU) in 1977, Robert Mugabe invented a political culture that conflated him with spirit mediums whom the nationalist movement had elevated to national deities and dead kings. Mugabe continued to cultivate this political culture in the post-colonial era using different discourses of self-presentation. The place-renaming exercise that the Mugabe regime implemented immediately after independence was part of Mugabe’s self-legitimating efforts. This article establishes that the place-renaming system in Harare projected Mugabe as a divine king.

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Rhodes, Mugabe and the Politics of Commemorative Toponyms in Zimbabwe

Cited by 12 publications

References 13 publications

‘Kutonga Kwaro Gamba’: Politics and the renaming of defence cantonments in the ‘Second Republic’ in Zimbabwe

‘Kutonga Kwaro Gamba’: Politics and the renaming of defence cantonments in the ‘Second Republic’ in Zimbabwe

Mugabe’s Urban Legacy: A Postcolonial Perspective on Urban Development in Harare, Zimbabwe

‘Is Mugabe Also Among the National Deities and Kings?’: Place Renaming and the Appropriation of African Chieftainship Ideals and Spirituality in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

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