Mulungushi: A toponymic exegesis

Abstract

This paper examines the toponym Mulungushi, a name that is slowly becoming popular in Zambia’s urban toponymic landscape. We begin by tracing the origin and/or importance of the name. Next, we identify the features that have been named Mulungushi in Zambia, and establish the informing ideology that underpins the choice of this name for the identified national features. The data for the study were collected mainly through documentary analysis, and also through semi-structured interviews of selected participants thought to be privy to the post-independence era, particularly the period from 1964 to 1970. The study found that the toponym Mulungushi is associated with nationalization and industrialization, in addition to serving as an enduring and unalloyed reminder of the urgent need for an economic manumission and (re)generation that characterized Zambia under Kenneth Kaunda’s rule during the independence euphoria and zeitgeist. We used the Critical Toponymic theory to contend that the drive to inscribe this toponymy to the urban toponymic landscape is engineered by the desire to inform and remind of the nationalization and industrialization drive that characterized Zambia immediately following independence, the ultimate aim being to harness and foster the same mood in the present state in a bid to bring about the much-desired economic emancipation in the country.