Remnants of colonial place-names in Gutu, Zimbabwe: Objectifying history or sustaining the frontiers of ‘othering’?

Abstract

This study, examines through the post-colonial and critical toponymy lens, the presence of settler place names of colonial origin in the post-2000 resettlement areas of Gutu District of Zimbabwe. Despite the attainment of independence by Zimbabwe in 1980, farm areas largely remained as enclaves of colonial ownership because independence through the Lancaster House Constitution did not drastically change land ownership. The post-2000 fast-track land reform ‘opened up’ these areas as the farms got transformed into villages and smaller farms after the compulsory acquisition of the farms by the Government. A critical study of the post-2000 toponymy in the resettlement areas reveals how the settler place names displaced local place-names and, in the process, mutilated the history and culture of the indigenous Shona people. With the exception of only a few, settler place names on the landscape currently, celebrate settler homelands, British imperialism, and generally recast Anglophonic narratives. These settler place-names are embedded in the formal and informal cartography of the communities where they are used in mundane and official discourses. It is the contention of this paper that colonial names, as relics of the colonial era that ended forty-one years ago in Zimbabwe, are resilient symbols of settler identity, signs of the annexation of the physical and virtual African cultural space. They indicate how language, through place-names, can engrave heritage and identity on the landscape. While these colonial place-names depict the objective history of Zimbabwe, there could be a need for cultural restoration through the resuscitation of local place-names to ensure that the linguistic landscape does not continue to sustain the frontiers of dispossession. Data for this study was generated qualitatively through in-depth interviews, observation, and document analysis.