Gendered Spaces in the City: Critical Topography in Geography Education

Abstract

Street names in city maps may be interpreted as traces of memory practices and politics, and can clearly be identified as the products of hegemonic norms and values of a given time and place. In the following article we describe a project-oriented teaching unit for secondary school students. In the course of the project, students are instructed to research either their school or residential neighborhoods, looking at the persons and events commemorated and written into the city. These toponymic inscriptions can be analyzed by studying the naming practice of streets and squares. Which people and events are remembered and which are forgotten? Do these events and people indicate processes of social inclusion, exclusion, marginalization, and discrimination? Investigating naming practices will be the starting point for the students to develop their own naming suggestions, as well as encouraging their active engagement in further negotiation processes regarding naming practices in their towns and villages. The teaching proposal is based on the idea of a geography teaching that educates politically, and meets the requirements of a critical topography approach (VIELHABER 2012). Students will also gain experience in aspects of a critical map reading competence (GRYL 2009) and the work can also be situated within the context of critical place-name studies (ROSE-REDWOOD 2009).