1.0 Introduction
Language, including names, expresses culture and identity. Okello (2020, p. 78) opines that ‘a name is one of the most explicit pointers of identity.’ This is because naming can include or exclude one or a group from certain identities. Naming the self is usually motivated by the need to assert self value or ingroup membership, and naming the other is usually associated with stereotypes and lower comparisons. The self ego embedded in self naming is clearly demonstrated in motivations for renaming, while the intensity of stereotypical naming of the other is demonstrated in the proliferation of nomen slurs. Stereotypes weaponise names and naming, creating expressive content to exalt the self and demean the other. Darwish (2010, p. 191) makes the claim that ‘Names used during conflicts are not mere labels; they are able to influence public thinking, beliefs, and political standpoints. They can also be used to change facts.’ Power can also be exhibited through naming; Richardson (1991, p. 1) posits that ‘From Charlemagne to the Tsars, from British imperialism to Italian fascism, the language and symbols of the Roman republic and the Roman emperors have been essential elements in the self-expression of imperial powers.’ This book identifies strategies of othering deployed within names and naming in global, continental, national, ethnic, economic, political and social colonialities of power. This introductory chapter highlights the nexus between names, naming and various colonialities in political, social, economical, gender and philosophical contexts in Africa. The chapter also highlights the theories engaged in the book, methodological issues and the organisation of the book.
1.1 Names and the other
The language-culture nexus has been described extensively in literature, and names, as part of language and discourse, are embedded in culture, and they are in fact culture. As Hall (1959) postulates that culture hides more than we can see, so does language. Strani and Szczepaniak-Kozak (2018, p. 162) opine that ‘Language, inextricably linked with culture, works in the same way, as it may mask (or betray) hegemonic relations as relics of colonialism, racialisation and othering in the context of societies that foster monoculture.’ The conflation of biology and politics in understanding human social power and its structures gave rise to othering language to separate the powerful from the powerless in discourse, as in reality. Fritsche (2019) traces colonialities of power back to Aristotle’s biological justification of slavery in politics, when he opined that society is made up of Greeks, then European Barbarians, followed by Asian Barbarians. Suffice it to note that the biological and regional gradings excluded Africa and Africans. As early as Aristotle, the world was ranked from Greek to European to Asian; here Greek is the self and the Barbarian the other, with layers of otherness all named to rank the otherness. On the one hand, names represent otherness, which already obtains in power structures, while on the other, they can influence othering. Names are part of language, and they operate to communicate and shape thinking and world views. Lake (2003, p. 2) observes that ‘the examination of names and naming draws attention to the fact that language not only gives us a medium to express our thoughts but also influences what we are capable of thinking.’
Controversies surrounding the name Mlungu for White persons in post-apartheid South Africa are indicative of the politics and emotions that can be loaded into a name. Loewe (2016), writing for Dispatchlive, notes that White people are offended by being called Mlungu and that they even equate the emotional damage they suffer from being called so to that of the ‘K’ word. The name has sparked intense debate based on different etymologies, and he further quotes South African language and culture experts Wababa and Kaschula as indicating that words are just letters; it is the emotions attached to them by humans which give them their power for good and evil and that language does not create the Holocaust, apartheid or racism – it is humans who do that. Language simply underpins the attitude. This development in South Africa motivated the author to examine the etymologies, meanings, implications and representations of various names in the African and global contexts so as to extricate how these relate to and influence various forms of inequalities and colonialities in Africa. The fact that people can debate the name Mlungu and give differing etymologies to justify their claims points to the fact that people manipulate reality so as to describe themselves favourably and others unequally.
Analysing the normative aspects of Plato’s Cratylus, Barney (2001) observes that for Plato, names should be analysed on how truthfully they reflect the nature of the thing named. However, seeking the exact truth in names and other such analogies may be futile given the subjectivities associated with the making of history. Facts of history are not entirely scientific (that is, if they can be scientific at all); they are socially constructed manipulative ideologies to control the present and the future. The motives and facts of history are dependent on each other to serve the historian or his or her handlers’ ideologies. Names and their etymologies cannot be spared by this subjectivity; the motives justify the facts of etymology in names. Bhatia (2005, p. 9) argues that ‘A name will place emphasis on certain aspects and characteristics of an object, while neglecting or omitting other key areas.’ Names are part of orature, and orality and lore utilise the power of words to preserve history and culture. Matson (1956, p. 63) argues that ‘words are full of history.’ Kirby (1954, p. 2) states that ‘language does not exist in a vacuum, but in a lived reality.’ History and politics are loaded into names so as to facilitate their discriminatory power. This is why Mangena and Ndlovu (2013, p. 441) argue that ‘the approach to the study of names is multidimensional; names are discussed from linguistic, historical as well as political standpoints.’ Such an approach to the analysis of names reveals those selfed by names and their others. The unequal power relations in human aggregates represent different colonialities of power (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013). some names represent and enforce colonialities, while others challenge them.
There are various colonialities which work to produce the various forms of subalternity. Coloniality is the machine that reproduces subalternity (Mignolo, 2001). Names in Africa are deployed to describe various forms of subalternity. Coloniality outlived colonisation and post-enlightenment structures and discourses such as postmodernism and postcoloniality. Globalisation and modernity are globalised forms of structuring the world into global masters and colonials. The structuring of power to dominate the other is the coloniality of power, and it was conceived together with Euro-American supremacy and race supremacy (Quijano, 2007). Globalised coloniality is achieved through dominance and subjugation by coercion, collaboration and persuasion (Mignolo, 2001). Some names represent the lives and afterlives of unequal power relations within and between human aggregates. Those in power and with power appropriate to themselves the divine right to name, and with this power, they inferiorise the other. Martinot (2011, p. 5) states that ‘The power to define is the power to objectify, and thus inferiorise; by defining an otherness for the Africans as property and wealth, the English defined themselves as superior.’ The fact that humans name other animals is a good example of how naming represents power relations. Borkfelt (2011, p. 117) points out that ‘naming, thus, is symbolic of the unequal power relations inherent to our relationship with other species.’ Naming also betrays the unequal power relations inherent to human relations.
The manipulation of power to create subalternity is present in all human organisations. This book explores the various powers and their subalternity described and expressed through names; these are globalised, political, economical, gendered, sexualised, ethnic, racial, regional and national colonialities expressed onomastically in Africa or to and by Africa. Borkfelt (2011, p. 118) argues that:
Naming is thus not only the first and most basic of linguistic processes; it is also an excellent example of the power or control that is in many ways inherent to language use. Whether what is named are lands, people or animals, the process of naming reflects the worldview of the one who names rather than the view of what is named.
Being named by others comes with a high risk of being misnamed. Bekerie (2004) identifies this misnaming as a process of devaluation. This superiority of the name givers is challenged through decolonial renaming as resistance to unequal social power, creating new forms of selfing and othering. Mendoza (2015) alludes to the coloniality of gender in patriarchal social structures which various feminist discourses seek to address. McNeill (1997, p. 521) reasons thus: ‘Superiority, real and perceived, and inferiority, real and perceived, are the substance of human intercourse and the major stimulus to social change throughout the course of history.’ Dominance and resistance have, over time, created othering and counter-othering names. Typically, names describing the other are usually offensive by their reference to stereotyped identity markers. Gilroy (2004, p. 104) observes that ‘when identity refers to an indelible mark or code somehow written into the bodies of its carriers, otherness can only be a threat.’ Names therefore, can be expressions of power and subalternity or talking back to power, and they can also be outright slurs.
1.2 Theoretical framework
The book engages postcolonial theory as it analyses the coloniality of power through names and naming. The power inequalities in names depict images of the self and the other. This makes othering theory central in all chapters. Various sub-theories of postcolonial theory and othering are deployed depending on the nature of the colonialities of power addressed by individual chapters. The book engages coloniality and decoloniality as frames to analyse global onomastic colonialities affecting Africa, while colonisation and decolonisation are engaged for the analysis of colonial naming and anti-colonial renaming, respectively. Feminist political economy frames arguments around the coloniality of gender in names, while historical trauma is engaged in the discussion of psychological effects of bad names such as ethnophaulisms and slavery- motivated naming of Africans by colonial powers.
Colonialist discourse was underpinned by imperial stewardship, a beli...
