‘Is Mugabe Also Among the National Deities and Kings?’: Place Renaming and the Appropriation of African Chieftainship Ideals and Spirituality in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

This article examines the elite construction of cultural landscapes in Harare. Since assuming reins power Zimbabwe African Nation Union (ZANU) 1977, Robert Mugabe invented a political culture that conflated him with spirit mediums whom nationalist movement had elevated to national deities and dead kings. continued cultivate this post-colonial era using different discourses self-presentation. The place-renaming exercise regime implemented immediately after independence was part Mugabe’s self-legitimating efforts. establishes system Harare projected as divine king.