Politics of Place Naming

Frédéric Giraut is a political geographer. He studies borders and place naming in different contexts. He currently heads the "Naming the World" UNESCO chair in inclusive toponomy at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch is a geographer and professor at Grenoble Alpes University and the PACTE laboratory in France. Her research focuses on post-apartheid South Africa, and South African cities from a social and political geography perspective, as well as on critical epistemologies and pedagogies.

• Acknowledgements xiFrédéric GIRAUT and Myriam HOUSSAY-HOLZSCHUCHChapter 1 Naming the World: Place-Naming Practices and Issues in Neotoponymy 1Frédéric GIRAUT and Myriam HOUSSAY-HOLZSCHUCH1.1 Political/critical toponymy: an emerging field at the core of territorialization issues 21.2 Political toponymy: a recent history? 41.3 On the agenda of political/critical toponymy: contradictory promotion of functional, market and inclusive corpuses 81.4 Theory-in-progress: beyond hegemony and dispositif, a toponymic situationism? 111.5 References 18Chapter 2 Commemorative Place Naming: To Name Places, to Claim the Past, to Repair Futures 29Derek H ALDERMAN2.1 A renaming moment in Paris 292.2 Place naming as commemorative work 302.3 Narrative capacities 322.4 Affective capacities 342.5 Material capacities 362.6 Reparative possibilities and limits 392.7 References 42Chapter 3 The Named, Lived and Contested Environment: Towards a Political Ecology of Toponymy 47Sébastien BOILLAT3.1 Introduction 473.2 The decline of toponymy as a substitute for archeology 493.3 Toponymy and ecology: another divorce, another reconciliation 513.4 From cultural heritage to environmental ethics: indigenous place names and beyond 533.5 The disputed toponymy: critical perspectives 553.6 Towards a political ecology of toponymy 573.7 Conclusion 593.8 References 60Chapter 4 Naming the Conquered Territories: Colonies and Empires -- Beneath and Beyond the Exonym/Endonym Opposition 65Frédéric GIRAUT4.1 Toponymic colonization of settler frontiers (long-distance metropolitan projections): the fictitious model of the Mysterious Island and its extensions 674.2 Toponymic imperialism: the model of Roman super(im)position and Ottoman condescension 774.3 Who's in, who's out? Colonial hybridizations and relativity of the concepts of exonym and endonym 814.4 References 87Chapter 5 "Addressing the World": A Political Genealogy of the Street Address 93Reuben ROSE-REDWOOD, Anton TANTNER and Sun-Bae KIM5.1 Introduction 935.2 Street addressing as a technology of power 945.3 Genealogies of the street address 975.4 The future of street addressing and the making of a geocoded world 1025.5 References 104Chapter 6 Toponymic Commodification: Thematic Brandscapes, Spatial Naming Rights and the Property--Name Nexus 109Jani VUOLTEENAHO6.1 Introduction 1096.2 Thematic namescapes in branding neighborhoods: From Sun Cities to Icebar Saigon and a Brooklyn with distinction 1126.3 Buying into and contesting spatial naming rights 1186.4 Discussion: the property--name nexus as a commodification frontier 1256.5 References 128Chapter 7 The Toponymy of Tourism and Leisure: General Framework and Lessons from France 135Christophe GAUCHON7.1 Introduction 1357.2 The new names of tourist places 1387.3 The evolution of the status and uses of toponyms: from designator to brand 1407.4 Touristic toponymy as an element of territorial restructuring 1427.5 Conclusion 1457.6 References 146Chapter 8 Transport Toponymy: For a Critical Study of the Toponomy of Places of Mobility 149Lucas DESTREM8.1 A significant but still understudied fact 1508.2 Research perspectives 1598.3 References 170Chapter 9 The Toponymy of Informal Settlements in the Global South 175Melissa WANJIRU-MWITA9.1 Introduction 1759.2 Toponymy and informality -- a theoretical background 1779.3 Naming patterns in Nairobi's informal settlements 1789.4 Actors involved in the toponymy of informal settlements 1869.5 Conclusion -- towards a toponymic framework for informal settlements 1869.6 References 187Chapter 10 The Map, the Name and the Territory: Toponymic Struggles in the Era of Cartographic Post-Sovereignty 191Matthieu NOUCHER10.1 Place names, an issue of information sovereignty 19110.2 Cartographic post-sovereignty and place names: when the geoweb blurs the map 19310.3 Toponymic struggles of yesterday and today: the exemplary case of Guiana 19910.4 Research agenda: when the geoweb brings place names into the era of post-sovereignty 21010.5 References 213Chapter 11 What Africa Might Contribute to Critical Toponymy 217Michel BEN ARROUS and Liora BIGON11.1 Official toponymy and others 21911.2 A problem of places 22611.3 A problem of hegemony 23511.4 Making sense: a heuristic of practices 24511.5 Final remarks 25011.6 References 253Conclusion 261Myriam HOUSSAY-HOLZSCHUCH and Frédéric GIRAUTList of Authors 273Index 275