Abstract
Soon after independency in Mozambique (1975), the country's Toponimy changed significantly through a replacement of the names of public and historical places with national heroes aiming to decolonize the past. The article composes a chapter of an ongoing thesis entitled "The influence of ethnicities in political conflicts in African states: the case study of Mozambique (1976-2019)".
The meaning of anthropological place is subjective - within the same country, the same place could be valued differently among people from different regions (South, Center and North). The article aims to analyze the use of anthropological places in a context of political conflict.
Three research questions were raised: How does the name of a place shape the behaviour of people living or visiting that place? How does the name can transform a space into anthropological place with a sacral meaning? How does political power use anthropological places? Preliminary results show that, during transformation of anthropological places, the new names have a meaning of local events and figures; there are some names with national impact, therefore, it cannot be seen as a potential for emergence of conflict. However, the way politics uses public spaces is more propagandistic, therefore, it creates an environment of political parties' cleavages which ends up with political conficts, in addition to other factors.
Methodologically, the chapter is a result of literature review. The study is important because it brings an approach of conflict beyond, neither armed, nor political ones, but anthropologically.