Post-2000 revitalisation of Shona place names in Zimbabwe: recovering voices from the past

Abstract

This research article, which falls within the post-1990s critical turn in the study of place names, examines, in the context of Zimbabwe’s post-2000 land reforms, the revitalisation of precolonial Shona place names. The overwriting of local names by colonial ones in the 90 years of Zimbabwe’s colonisation effaced the rich legacy of precolonial Shona social and ethnic organisational information, anecdotal historical information, Shona spirituality and indigenous knowledge. This erasure of local indigenous names by English colonial place names silenced multiple narratives of the local people. The post-2000 land reform programme (Third Chimurenga) revived part of the repressed narratives of the local people through the revival of precolonial Shona place names. However, the revitalisation had to contend with negative attitudes towards indigenous names, official cartography and the superior position of English as a global language. Despite their numerical inferiority, the revitalised toponyms are symbolic of the restoration of agency to the indigenous Africans. This study confirmed that toponyms play a critical role in the revitalisation and preservation of African indigenous knowledge systems. The study employed qualitative methodology, while postcolonial theory’s concept of onomastic erasure and language ecology provided the theoretical underpinnings.