Naming Streets Essay

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power and describe the three ways that the authors suggest this subject may be viewed and modeled. The essay will conclude with comments on the criticalness of this article and discuss the aims of this article and what the authors are wishing to transform or modify.

Power

The authors suggested that the process of naming streets was directly linked to expressing explicit power over a situation or territory. This can be compared to a dog marking his territory by spreading his marking or scent. They wrote " the discursive act of assigning a name to a given location does much more than merely denote an already existing place. Rather, as scholars from various fields have suggested, the act of naming is itself a performative practice that calls forth the 'place' to which it refers by attempting to stabilize the unwieldy contradictions of sociospatial processes into the seemingly more 'managable' order of textual inscription." In this case, power is being related to the process of merging social needs with spatial availability.

The Three Approaches

The authors recommended three approaches to examine toponymic practices that include: naming from the standpoint of semiotics, as an integral strategy in the production of calculable spaces, and through the lens of social justice which uses the place naming system as cultural arenas.

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Semiotics, or the study of signs suggests that place naming is essentially cultural and these names reflect natural social identifying words usually of people or ideals. When approaching the subject from the standpoint of producing calculable spaces, place naming reflects more of an objective and connotative purpose as the practice is used for organizing and putting things in a logical order, such as numbered streets, like 1st avenue is next to 2 nd avenue.

The third method of used by these authors suggested that place naming can be used to conduct political operations within a public arena to signify dominance and control.

Critical Aspects

This article is critical of the state of geography and its inability to see the practice of place naming in the same manner as the authors. The article is not overly critical as it omits certain key points that would suggest that the piece is more aggressive. Namely, the lack of the authors to adequately define key terms such as "space" and "time" reveals a lack of depth of critical analysis and seeming attempts to bloviate on an….....

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