|
|
|
| THE POLITICS OF PLACE NAMING: CHANGING PLACE NAME AND REPRODUCTION OF MEANING FOR CONGHUA HOTSPRING |
| LI Peng1,2, FENG Dan2,3 |
1. School of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China;
2. Center for Social and Cultural Geography Research, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China;
3. School of Tourism Management, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China |
|
|
|
|
Abstract 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.
|
|
Received: 16 August 2014
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2015, Vol. 30 
