The death of the author in place names: A Barthesian intervention into critical toponymy

Abstract

Over the past 2 decades, the critical toponymy literature reached a certain level, both qualitatively and quantitatively, that it is now both possible and necessary to subject the field itself to a critical evaluation. This study aims to make such a critical inquiry by arguing that although there has been important progress in critical toponymy studies, the field still has a tendency to approach place names on the basis of a hierarchy between ‘powerful hegemonic groups’ that control the official naming institutions and ‘weak masses’ who use place names in their everyday lives. This tendency, in turn, limits the critical toponymists by not allowing them to conceive what lies beyond the rejection and acceptance of hegemonic power. Although this article does not propose a clear‐cut solution to this problem, it assumes that critical toponymists may learn from Roland Barthes who attempted to solve similar problems in literature by declaring the death of the author and the birth of the reader.

Problematizing urban microtoponyms

“…As Derek Alderman (2022, pp. 34–35) has made the point: “Place naming works with sensory experience, individual memory and the built environment to influence the feel, mood and ambience of the past.” Furthermore, this paper argues that recent calls for “a dialogue with the geography of emotions” (Giraut & Houssay‐Holzschuch, 2022a, p. 267) or “emotional turn” (Düzgün, 2021, p. 10) in critical toponymy have great potential for wide‐reaching theoretical and empirical engagement with urban microtoponymy. Notably, these minor place names reflect not only habit and memory (cf.…”

‘Rename the Streets’: The Challenges of Decolonizing Toponymy in Toronto Canada

“…A fourth line of research has considered symbolic resistance and controversies over renaming 8 . Finally, Critical Toponymy itself has been critiqued for its dualistic focus on hegemonic power versus grassroots popular resistance 9 .…”