Abstract
Abstract This paper investigates street naming practices in Luxembourg. Starting from a theoretical sketch of how the curation of a given cityscape by dint of cultural artifacts (e.g., street names) establishes complex orders of cultural representation, it discusses three case studies for street naming campaigns from Luxembourg. These case studies represent different types of action modes, ideological motives and linguistic materials involved in street naming. First, the naming process for a newly established neighborhood in Luxembourg City illustrates the default mode of street naming by administrative action. Second, the Germanization of Luxembourg City under German occupation during World War II demonstrates the forced alignment of a given cityscape through political octroi. And third, the recent first naming of preexisting streets in the rural municipality of Wincrange provides an example of a participatory naming process that establishes an order of cultural representation based on local traditions.
Highlights
Curating the cityscapeMonuments, and other cultural artifacts form part of the publicly accessible (self-)image of a given community
This paper investigates street naming practices in Luxembourg
The interplay of different modes, motives and materials of cultural representation can be seen from the comparison of the three case studies: The example of “Ban de Gasperich” illustrates the curation of the cityscape through administrative action, the main goal of which is the practical organization of the public sphere
Summary
Monuments, and other cultural artifacts form part of the publicly accessible (self-)image of a given community. It is a recognizable sign for outsiders of the historical and current sociocultural character of this community In regulated communities, such as cities, this public image is often being curated by dedicated groups of actors, for example, a standing street naming committee, and legitimized by municipal authorities against the backdrop of a specific societal climate (i.e., a form of government or political ideology), establishing orders of cultural representation in the cityscape. The curation of public space can be described as a constant negotiation of regimes of social visibility (Purschke 2020a; Ranciere 2000), which represent the (conscious as well as unconscious) sociocultural and ideological fundament of a given community In this respect, the analytical focus is less on the ensemble of public signs than on the crucial role of actors in establishing and structuring this ensemble (see Ben-Rafael et al 2006). In the following I use the (re)naming of streets to exemplify the curation of a socio-symbolic resource and a publicly visible component involving complex orders of cultural representation
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