Anthropological Places in Mozambique in the Context of Political Conflict

Abstract

Soon after independence in Mozambique (1975), the country´s toponymy changed with the aim of decolonizing the past. The article consists of a chapter of an ongoing thesis entitled "The influence of ethnicities in political conflicts in African states: the case study of Mozambique (1976-2019)". The article aims to analyse the use of anthropological places in a context of political conflict. Three research questions were raised: How does the name of a place shape the behaviour of people living or visiting that place? How does the name transform a space into an anthropological place with a sacral meaning? How does political power use anthropological places? Preliminary results show that, during transformation of anthropological places, the new names have a meaning of local events and figures; there are some names with national impact. Therefore, Anthropological places cannot be seen as a potential for conflict emerging. However, the way politics uses public spaces is more propagandistic. Therefore, it creates an environment of political parties’ divisions leading to political conflicts, in addition to other factors. Methodologically, the chapter is a result of a literature review. The study is important because it approaches conflict beyond armed or political ones, but anthropologically.