Nicknaming as a Mode of Black Resistance: Reflections on Black Indigenous People's Nicknaming of Colonial White Farmers in Zimbabwe

This article focuses on the nicknaming of White farmers by indigenous Black people of Zimbabwe as one way through which they expressed their utter discontentment about the way White settlers treated indigenous Black farmworkers and surrounding Black communities during and after the colonial era. It notes that such nicknames played a vital communicative role that reflected the nature of the existing relations between White farmers and Black indigenous people. First, the article characterizes the concepts of naming and nicknaming. Second, it notes that nicknames that were given to colonial White farmers depicted quite variant relations that existed between White farmers and their Black subjects. Grounded on the theoretical framework of Afrocentric theory, the article situates Black people's resistance to White colonial settlers' brutality via such communicative nicknaming within the broader context of misplaced colonial perceptions about Africans.