Aline Beatriz Miranda da Silva

ALINE BEATRIZ MIRANDA DA SILVA, then a graduate student at University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil, was approved funding in April 2023 to aid research on “Indigenizing Assimilation: The Innovative Naming Practices in Gaza (Mozambique),” supervised by Dr. Marcela Stockler Coelho de Souza. The project addresses the innovative naming practices in Gaza, Mozambique, and their relationship to historical changes from Portuguese colonialism and its assimilation policy to the present day, marked by post-colonial dynamics. The province of Gaza is crossed by the lower Limpopo River Basin and is part of the Limpopo Valley, considered one of the most important agricultural regions in Mozambique. The majority of the inhabitants of Gaza province are native speakers of the Changana language. Despite this, a proliferation of personal names of Lusophone (Portuguese) origin has been observed as a consequence of Portuguese colonialism. In general, anthroponyms (personal names) in the region include a random Portuguese name (inspired by artists, characters from films and soap operas, scientists, soccer players, etc.), followed by the name of an agnatic relative, called the “traditional name” (in Portuguese or in the Changana language), in addition to a patronymic. Kinship relations and, above all, relationships with ancestors show the importance of giving relatives names to children so that the dead can always be “remembered.” Thus, the different ways of creating personal names reveal aspects of creativity and transformations of “tradition,” which demonstrates the complex relationship between naming, origin, race, nativity/locality, and nationality.