最近三十年出现的地名研究的批判性转向,使地方命名的政治过程成为地名研究的核心议题。在此背景下通过从化温泉这一著名旅游地的地名变更过程的研究,对我国地名变迁的政治进行探讨。研究发现,一个地方的命名是一场复杂的政治经济角力过程。"从化温泉"这一地名在历史的演变中拥有了令人瞩目的"符号资本"价值,成为中国政治体制中不同尺度行动者积极争取的对象。处于上层尺度的行动者通过政治事件与营销不断累积"从化温泉"的政治符号意义,使其成为国家尺度的地方范畴。而处于下层的地方政府则通过地名转移使用赋予"从化温泉"以新的地方意义。在这场围绕地名的争夺中,地方社区与地名的历史联系被边缘化甚至消除。

The past 30 years has witnessed a critical reformulation on the study of toponymy as the politics of place naming practices become the focus. Increasing scholars are paying attention to criticize the social fighting and political struggle when analyzing a place name, instead of regarding it only as a substitute of a specific geographical area. In China, the great development of economy has brought various geographical transitions. Among them, the changes of place names have become one of the most significant geographical issues due to the needs of cities marketing strategies or political reasons. Under this context, the traditional methods of Toponymy, which focuses only on classifying and resourcing places names, can neither follow the steps of changes of places names driven by economic development, nor be understood the deeper reasons behind them. Therefore, this paper tries to take the name-changing process of Conghua Hot Spring, as an example to analyze the politics of place naming practices in China. We use qualitative research method, by analyzing the documents, in-depth interview and field observation materials. The findings of the research unravel a complicated political process on place (re)naming practices. Because of the high symbolic value of "Conghua Hot Spring" in China's history, this name becomes a focus of attention from different scales of the actors.