Advocacy for Inclusive place naming policies at the Forum on Minorities Issues

Towards Inclusive place naming policies !
Frédéric Giraut, (Unesco chair in inclusive toponymy  “Naming the World”, Geneva University), contributed as panelist to the United Nations Forum on Minorities Issues.  (Panel : Minority representation in Public Space).

To see (7′) on UN Web TV from 54’15”, 

https://www.ohchr.org/en/events/forums/2024/seventeenth-session-forum-minorities-issues

Here are the main points of the contribution:

How to promote “minority” toponymies  through inclusive place naming?

Minority’ vernacular place names are:

• Indigenous place names, especially in postcolonial context,
• Originals and ancient place names in minority or regional languages,
• Neotoponyms produced by local communities and immigrants, especially in informal settlements,
• Proper names Claims for rebalancing (Gender and postcolonial) in street naming.

 

Visibility of ‘minority’ place names: undeniable progress in last decades …

• Specific Sections in Charter and Declaration
  • European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, 1992 Art 10.2. g
  • United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) 2007, art 13
• Development of multilingual signage practices
  
• Increasing initiatives to restore indigenous place names
• Growing initiatives Decolonisation and feminisation of street names

… But setbacks, recessions, risks and delays

Setbacks and Recessions

• Numerous cases of toponymic cleansing at large scale: conquest, external hegemony leading to negation of presences, cultures, and memories
• Backtracking on regional autonomies in place naming and multliligual signage: loss of autonomy, hegemony of the majority language and references
• Top down street adrressing ignoring vernacular place naming, needs and creativity

Risks 

• Homogenisation and hegemony through translation from national or regional languages and references, including in multilingual signage systems
• Standardisation and stabilisation promoted by the toponymic commissions, don’t help for change and recognization

Fundamental Issues

• Jurisdictional homonogenical approach to toponymy: one territory = one sovereignty = one language, which prevents the recognition of vernacular practices and knowledges
• Officials commissions devoting to toponymy favouring standardisation and sovereignty over the SDGs (inclusion): cultural rights sacrificed to technical and jurisdictional constraints.

The digital turns: opportunity for inclusive toponymy

The digital cartographic revolution is redistributing toponymic maps away from informational sovereignty: private (Google Maps, etc.) and collaborative (OSM, Wikimapia, etc.) mapping systems are now used in all common navigation software

• > opportunities for promoting vernacular knowledge and making it more visible

Street Addressing policies promoted by the Universal Postal Union and World Bank,  and required by both new services and geolocation demand

• > opportunities for vernacular and memorial inventories, and new methods for thinking about multi-lingual approach and the promotion of invisibilised memories

First Recommendations

Drawing up a specific charter and developing specific sections of former charters and declarations (European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, etc.) on inclusive toponymic rights in relation to issues of minority and vernacular cultures, languages, presences and memory in public space. Affirmation of the principle of toponymic non-hegemony with participatory inventories, based on vernacular evidence, and potentially leading to inclusive signage and mapping, and to place (re)naming.

• Involving the stakeholders in digital cartography, and the ones in the standardisation of geographical names (UNGEGN) in the definition of an inclusive strategy and related protocols
• Organising and promoting vernacular and participatory toponymic diagnostics (or inventories) during addressing or mapping operations, in the same way as archaeological or environmental diagnostics may exist for development operations
• Supplementing official toponymic databases (nomenclature) with vernacular and minorities databases or inventories and related set of proposals for future or alternative naming.

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