Urban Pulse - Gendered urban toponyms in the global South: a time for de-colonization?

Gendered cities: Studying urban gender bias through street names

“…This is a significant addition to an under-researched topic in this literature since, as Rose-Redwood et al (2018) pointed out, "the study of the gender politics of street naming is still a woefully neglected theme in urban studies and critical toponymic scholarship" (p. 13). Despite some other recent works (Bigon and Zuvalinyenga, 2021), more research is needed to improve our understanding of important questions such as how naming practices interact with social activism and the political empowerment of women. In addition, this study provides a new quantitative methodological approach to the place name literature, which is largely dominated by qualitative ethnographic analysis.…”

“…For other countries, studies of cultures as different as Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Anping (Taiwan) conclude that gendered street names contribute to the persistence and reinforcement of gender stereotypes, that is, the traditional perception of the female role in society (Cavalo, 2019;Yu, 2014). Bigon and Zuvalinyenga (2020) show that the exclusion of women from urban place names is salient in Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, these works show that women are not only quantitatively under-represented, but also qualitatively in the hierarchy of the urban network (with female names being relatively more frequent in secondary streets and the periphery).…”

“…As the critical toponymic scholarship has discussed, the overrepresentation of male names in the cityscape not only reflects a historical and cultural fact; it can also contribute to its perpetuation by making the presence of male names to be more “natural” in the public sphere. 3 This male predominance can aggravate a certain feeling of exclusion from the urban space, affecting “the urban political experience and emotional well-being of women” (Bigon and Zuvalinyenga, 2021, p. 227). Understandably, there is a reaction to this unfair situation: the desire of (symbolic) empowerment and reclaiming of the public space, channeled through social movements that promote a greater presence of women in street names.…”

“…This exclusion not only reflects a historical and cultural fact, but also contributes to its perpetuation by making the presence of male names more 'natural' in daily life. In addition, their symbolic marginalization through a gendered street map leads to feelings of exclusion, revealed through interviews and by the existence of social movements (Bigon and Zuvalinyenga, 2020). The female share indicator can be a useful tool for a more just urban management policy in order to monitor progress towards a more inclusive urban toponymy.…”

The Development of Online Learning Media based on Tiktok for Teaching Local Wisdom Course during the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…Toponyms are cultural artefacts left by a number of complex interactions between people's ideas, culture and environment [28]. In general toponyms have a strong historical sense [29], as they were created at a certain point in time, complete with its current conditions on geography, culture, and the people's cognition and attitudes around that time span [30]. The names of places are an essential part of cultural landscapes and heritage [31].…”