Naming colonialism : history and collective memory in the Congo, 1870-1960 / Osumaka Likaka.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Likaka, Osumaka, 1953-

Series:

Africa and the diaspora

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nicknames.

History.

Kongo language.

Epithets.

Colonization.

Congo (Brazzaville)--Colonization.

Congo (Brazzaville).

Democratic Republic of the Congo--Colonization.

Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Kongo language--Epithets.

Nicknames--Congo (Brazzaville)--History.

Nicknames--Congo (Democratic Republic)--History.

Congo (Democratic Republic).

Physical Description:

xii, 220 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, [2009]

Summary:

What's in a name? As Osumaka Likaka argues in this illuminating study, the names that Congolese villagers gave to European colonizers reveal much about how Africans experienced and reacted to colonialism. The arrival of explorers, missionaries, administrators, and company agents allowed Africans to observe Westerners' physical appearances, behavior, and cultural practices at close range-often resulting in subtle yet trenchant critiques. By naming Europeans, Africans turned a universal practice into a local mnemonic system, recording and preserving the village's understanding of colonialism in the form of pithy verbal expressions that were easy to remember and transmit across localities, regions, and generations.

Methodologically innovative, Naming Colonialism advances a new approach that shows how a cultural process-the naming of Europeans-can provide a point of entry into economic and social histories. Drawing on archival documents and oral interviews, Likaka encounters and analyzes a welter of coded fragments. The vivid epithets Congolese gave to rubber company agents "the home burner, " "Leopard, " "Beat, beat, " "The hippopotamus-hide whip" clearly conveyed the violence that underpinned colonial extractive economies. Other names were subtler, hinting at derogatory meaning by way of riddles, metaphors, or symbols to which the Europeans were oblivious. Africans thus emerge from this study as autonomous actors whose capacity to observe, categorize, and evaluate reverses our usual optic, providing a critical window on central African colonialism in its local and regional dimensions.

Contents:

1 The Dynamics of Naming in Precolonial Congo: An Overview 21

2 Colonialism and the Village World: Contexts to Naming 32

3 Naming, Colonialism, Making History, and Social Memories 53

4 Early Naming, Explorations, Trade, and Rubber Collection 79

5 Naming and Belgian Colonial Rule 92

6 Talking under One's Bream: Praise Names as Strategic Ambiguities 119

7 Confronting African Voices: Negotiations and Instrumentalization of Names 136.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780299233648

0299233642

9780299233631

0299233634

OCLC:

316772083

Publisher Number:

40017333908