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This volume examines the discursive relations between indigenous, colonial and post-colonial legacies of place-naming in Africa in terms of the production of urban space and place. It is conducted by tracing and analysing place-naming processes, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa during colonial times (British, French, Belgian, Portuguese), with a considerable attention to both the pre-colonial and post-colonial situations. By combining in-depth area studies research - some of the contributions are of ethnographic quality - with colonial history, planning history and geography, the authors intend to show that culture matters in research on place names.
This volume goes beyond the recent understanding obtained in critical studies of nomenclature, normally based on lists of official names, that place naming reflects the power of political regimes, nationalism, and ideology.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Place Names in Africa: Colonial Urban Legacies, Entangled Histories.- 2. Sarah's Globe and the (Un-)naming of Mobile Space.- 3. Bagamoyo: Inquiry into an East African Place Name.- 4. 'The Trees are Yours': Nature, Toponymy and Politics in the Interpretation of Cultural Landscapes in Lusaka and Zanzibar.- 5. Transnational Aspects in the History of Lagos: Place Names and Built Forms.- 6. From 'Avenue de France' to 'Boulevard Hassan II': Toponymic Inscription and the Construction of Nationhood in Fes, Morocco.- 7. The Colonial Toponymic Model in the Capital Cities of French West Africa.- 8. A Toponymy of Segregation: the 'neutral zones' of Dakar, Dar es Salaam and Kinshasa.- 9. Generic Terminology in Colonial Urban Contexts: Garden Cities between Dakar and Tel Aviv.- 10. Letters, Words, Worlds: the Naming of Soweto.- 11. South African Identity as Reflected by its Toponymic Tapestry.- 12. M(g)r. De Hemptin(n)e, I presume? Transforming Local Memory through Toponymy in Colonial/Post-Colonial Lubumbashi, DR Congo.- 13. Formal and Informal Toponymic Inscriptions in Maputo: towards Socio-Linguistics and Anthropology of Street Naming.- 14. Glocal Naming and Shaming: Toponymic (Inter-)national Relations on Lagos and New York Streets.- 15. Afterword.
About the author
After finishing her PhD studies in Architecture at the University of Manchester, Liora Bigon is an urban historian, a Research Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a lecturer in Holon Institute of Technology. Apart from publications in a variety of academic journals on the subject of indigenous and colonial planning cultures in sub-Saharan Africa, she has written and edited several books in this area. The latter project, co-edited together with Prof. Yossi Katz, deals with the transnational dimensions of the garden city model in colonial Africa and Mandate Palestine, was published in March 2014 by Manchester University Press.
Summary
This volume examines the discursive relations between indigenous, colonial and post-colonial legacies of place-naming in Africa in terms of the production of urban space and place. It is conducted by tracing and analysing place-naming processes, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa during colonial times (British, French, Belgian, Portuguese), with a considerable attention to both the pre-colonial and post-colonial situations. By combining in-depth area studies research – some of the contributions are of ethnographic quality – with colonial history, planning history and geography, the authors intend to show that culture matters in research on place names.
This volume goes beyond the recent understanding obtained in critical studies of nomenclature, normally based on lists of official names, that place naming reflects the power of political regimes, nationalism, and ideology.
