Naming No Man's Land

This book is a practice-based exploration of the politics and poetics of replacing colonial placenames with Indigenous ones. From a horizon of case-studies in Western Australia, the study develops a lively dialogue with international critical toponymy theory and with older etymological approaches to place renaming and legitimation. The author shows how renaming raises fundamental questions of meaning, reference and cross-cultural equivalence.

Recognising the 'sense of place' values that accrue to placenames, Carter argues that placenames have a creative as well as discursive function: they are talking points that bring places into being. For this reason, to decolonize toponymy involves a postcolonial poetics. Naming No Man's Land argues for a practical, community-shaped toponymic poetics that escapes from the binarist logic of imposition/erasure, showing that, when the principle that 'places are made after their stories' is followed, new creative mechanisms of co-existence can emerge. A must read for anyone engaged in postcolonial studies, creativity studies, cultural geography, sociolinguistics, historical ethnography, eco-criticism, environmental humanities, (Australian) Aboriginal studies, and related disciplines.

The first in-depth study of the poetics and politics of the rapidly expanding practice of decolonising placenames Highlights the issues involved at government level in advocating for and adopting Indigenous placenames Explores toponymy integrating linguistic and creative considerations as well as political and cultural imperatives

Autorentext

Paul Carter is Professor of Design (Urbanism) at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, a distinguished public artist and sound designer. The Indigenous place renaming projects discussed in Naming No Man's Land were delivered through the Aboriginal-owned cultural consultancy, Nyungar Birdiyia, of which he is co-director.

Inhalt

Introduction: practising toponymic decolonisation.- Chapter 1 Relating Country: some recent Noongar placenaming projects.- Chapter 2 Proper Names: differences between Aboriginal and colonial toponymy.- Chapter 3 Naming and Renaming Places: politics, poetics and psychology.- Chapter 4 Decolonising No Man's land: writing back against the map.- Chapter 5 Making Place: yarning and the protocols of poetic geography.- Chapter 6 Anticipating arrival: migrancy and creative toponymy.- Conclusion: right ways of meeting, their naming and mapping.