Session Description: Recent work in critical toponymic studies seeks to explore the economic and commercial context within which naming occurs. Recognizing that naming is an important social practice connected to larger patterns and processes of capitalism, the organizers of the planned panel seek to discuss the commodified namescapes and their place within social relations and identity politics. Audience participation will be encouraged after panelists make brief comments. Discussion may focus on any number of important questions, including but not limited to ones listed below.
1. How and why are names important to the promotion and marketing of places and people?
2. How are names crafted in selective ways to (re)construct the identities of places and people?
3. What promotional themes or discourses are embraced (or rejected) in fashioning a name to sell?
4. What kinds of power relations and political struggles surround the commodification of namescapes?
5. How does the commodification of naming serve certain social groups while ignoring or harming others?
6. To what extent is the power to name a point of contention in the commercial development and place packaging process?
7. To what extent is the naming process shaped by conflicts between exchange and use values?
8. How has the recent neoliberalization influenced conventional naming
practices in different geographical settings?
