Naming Colonialism: History and Collective Memory in the Congo, 1870–1960

by Osumaka Likaka

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Africa

220 pages, Paperback

First published December 8, 2009

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2009 Osumaka Likaka, set out to prove his adviser wrong that "...we cannot write history out of short words and phrases." (pg.5) While he certainly proved his adviser wrong on one score, if by "history" he actually meant "book," I'd have to agree! This work is a prime example of an academic piece that should have remained a lengthy article. Even at 162 pages, which is about 100 pages less than a typical historical monograph,it's still more than 100 pages too long for the information Likaka had at his disposal. The amount of repetition and obvious conclusions he had to use to pad out the book is on the verge of ridiculous. For any grad students planning to read this work (which despite this criticism I would highly recommend) don't feel guilty about only reading the intro and conclusions to the book and chapter intros and conclusions (you'll be able to spot the conclusions easily because every single one starts out with "Briefly") - there is absolutely nothing earth-shattering in the body of the text that he doesn't reiterate 4 times elsewhere (Intro, chapter intro, in the text, chapter conclusion, book conclusion)

Likaka stated that his two main objectives for this work were methodological and epistemological/conceptual (pg. 157), and he certainly achieves them. His work is path breaking in his use of using the names that the Congolese attached to the foreign colonial officials as a for of resistance and expression. Keen to include all perspectives, he fleshes out how the colonials reacted to and utilized their native monikers. Certainly, Likaka has found a unique approach to combat the problem that all of us face who study people who did not leave written records - this body of information certainly proved to be a trove of fascinating insights and I give him props for ignoring his adviser's initial dismissal of the sources, I just wish he'd not have tried to make a monographic mountain out of a molehill of sources.

[Helen-a · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am taking a class from Professor Likaka this semester so I may be a little bit biased but I really enjoyed both of his books. His style of both writing and teaching is of a different time, where it is easy to get lost in his words and stories while simultaneously learning interesting tidbits of information. I also like that he does not come from a European standpoint, but from an African one.