Critical Place-Name Studies: Power, Semiotics, and Space
This paper reviews Rose-Redwood, Alderman, and Azaryahu's 2010 article on critical place-name studies, published in Progress in Human Geography. It examines how the authors frame street naming and toponymic practices as expressions of power over territory. The paper outlines the three analytical approaches the authors propose — semiotics, the production of calculable spaces, and social justice — and evaluates the article's critical contributions and limitations. The review notes that while the article advances geographic scholarship on place naming, it falls short in defining key terms and would benefit from incorporating perspectives from sociology and psychology.
- Introduction: Overview of the paper's scope and aims
- Power and Place Naming: Street naming as an expression of territorial power
- The Three Approaches to Toponymic Practice: Semiotics, calculable spaces, and social justice frameworks
- Critical Assessment of the Article: Strengths, gaps, and interdisciplinary limitations
- References: Cited source for Rose-Redwood et al. 2010
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What makes this paper effective
- Concisely summarizes a theoretical article, identifying its central argument (power) and its three analytical frameworks without overstating the source material.
- Moves logically from exposition to evaluation, first explaining the authors' framework and then offering a critical reading of its gaps.
- Maintains a measured critical tone, noting limitations without dismissing the article's contribution entirely.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates source-based critical analysis: it faithfully represents the authors' claims using direct quotation, then steps back to assess what the article achieves and where it falls short. This structure — summary followed by evaluation — is a foundational skill in academic writing and literature review.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief framing statement, then moves through three substantive sections. The "Power" section introduces the central argument with a supporting quotation. "The Three Approaches" section unpacks each of the authors' frameworks in turn. "Critical Aspects" shifts to evaluation, identifying the article's limitations, including undefined key terms and a narrow disciplinary scope. A single reference closes the paper.
Introduction
This paper reviews Rose-Redwood, Alderman, and Azaryahu's 2010 article on geographies of toponymic inscription and critical place-name studies. It examines the role of power in the naming of streets, describes the three approaches the authors propose for viewing and modeling this subject, and concludes with a critical assessment of the article's aims and limitations.
Power and Place Naming
The authors suggest that the process of naming streets is directly linked to expressing explicit power over a situation or territory. This can be compared to the way an animal marks its territory — an act that is both symbolic and spatial. The authors write: "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 'manageable' order of textual inscription."
In this framing, power is understood as the process of merging social needs with spatial availability. The act of naming a street or place is not merely administrative; it is an assertion of authority over how a location is understood and remembered.
The Three Approaches to Toponymic Practice
The authors recommend three approaches for examining toponymic practices: naming from the standpoint of semiotics, naming as an integral strategy in the production of calculable spaces, and naming through the lens of social justice, which treats the place-naming system as a cultural arena.
Semiotics, or the study of signs, suggests that place naming is essentially cultural. Place names reflect natural social identifying words — typically the names of people or ideals — that carry meaning beyond their literal reference. When approaching the subject from the standpoint of producing calculable spaces, place naming serves a more objective and organizational purpose. It is used to impose logical order on the landscape, as seen in numbered street grids where 1st Avenue is adjacent to 2nd Avenue.
The third approach suggests that place naming can be used to conduct political operations within a public arena, signifying dominance and control. In this view, the cultural arena of place naming becomes a site of contestation where power relations are inscribed onto the landscape.
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