Dr. Zvinashe Mamvura

Profile

Academic positionLecturer, Assistant Professor, Researcher
Research fieldsGeneral and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
Keywordscollective memory, politics, place names, Toponymic commemoration, power

Current contact address

CountryZimbabwe
CityHarare
InstitutionUniversity of Zimbabwe (UZ)
InstituteAfrican Languages Research Institute (ALRI)

Host during sponsorship

Prof. Dr. Tom GüldemannInstitut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin
Start of initial sponsorship01/06/2019

Programme(s)

2017Georg Forster Research Fellowship Programme for Postdocs

Publications (partial selection)

2023Zvinashe Mamvura: Goodbye Zimbabwe: Place naming as a cultural arena for symbolic resistance and spatial (in)justice in secessionist politics. . In: Onoma: Journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, 58, 2023, 215–240
2022Mamvura, Z. Changa, M. and Mupandasekwa, I.: Karanga bovonyms in the Nyajena area of Masvingo: a socio-onomastic perspective. In: African Identities, 2022, 1-16
2022Mamvura, Z.: Reconstituting the cultural geography in Zimbabwe: Place renaming in Zimbabwe’s ‘new dispensation.’ . In: Geopolitics, 27, 2022, 972-994
2022Bishi, G., Mujere, J., and Mamvura, Z: Renaming Enkeldoorn: Whiteness, place, and the politics of belonging in Southern Rhodesia. In: Journal of Historical Geography 77, 2022, 55-64
2021Mamvura, Z.: An ethnopragmatic analysis of death-prevention names in the Karanga society of Zimbabwe. In: African Studies 80, 2021, 111-124
2021Mamvura, Z. M. Mazuruse, and I. Mupandasekwa, I: The ‘toponymic undoing’ of Grace Mugabe and the G40 narratives in the ‘‘New Dispensation‘‘: A political semiotics exegesis. In: O. Nyambi, T. Mangena and G. Ncube, The Zimbabwean Crisis after Mugabe: Discourse and Complexities of Transition. Routledge, 2021. 79-97
2021Mamvura, Z.: ‘By what authority?’ The contested politics of urban toponymic inscription in Zimbabwe. In: Urban Geography, 2021, 1-24
2021Mamvura, Z.: ‘Is Mugabe also among the national deities and kings?’: Place renaming and the appropriation of African chieftainship ideals and spirituality in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. In: Journal of Asian and African Studies 56, 2021, 1861-1878
2021Mamvura, Z.: ‘Kutonga Kwaro Gamba’: Politics and the renaming of defence cantonments in the ‘Second Republic’ in Zimbabwe. In: GeoJournal, 86, 2021, 2279-2293
2021Mamvura, Z.: ‘Where Art Thou?’: Ethnocracy, Toponymic Silence, and Toponymic Subjugation in the Harare Commemorative Landscapes during the Mugabe Era (1980–2017). In: Urban Forum 32, 2021, 17-31
2020Zvinashe Mamvura: Let us make Zimbabwe in my own name: Placenaming and Mugabeism in Zimbabwe. In: South African Journal of African Languages, 2020, 32-39
2020Mamvura, Z.: A gendered analysis of the European place naming system in Salisbury, Rhodesia, c.1890 to 1980. In: Loth, C. R., Recognition, regulation, revitalisation: Place names and indigenous languages: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Place Names 2019 Jointly organised by the Joint IGU/ICS Commission on Toponymy and the UFS Clarens, South Africa, 18-20 September 2019. Sun Media Bloemfontein (Pty) Ltd, 2020. 197-218
2020 Mamvura, Z, C. Pfukwa, and D. E. Mutasa: Scale, street renaming and the continued visibility of colonial street names in Harare. In: Nomina Africana 34, 2020, 21–32
2020Mamvura, Z.: ‘Who does the Mugabe regime say that I am?’ Dissecting the toponymic commemoration of Joshua Nkomo in Zimbabwe’s cultural geography. In: African Identities, 2020, 1-17