Post-war new urban projects in Syria, an exploratory study of toponyms
Jack KEILO, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, France
During the Syrian war, toponymy was at the heart of the symbolic dimension of the conflict. Among opposition forces, activists used odonomastic guerilla to change place names and “heroify” public space by adding the names of people killed by government forces. On the other side, the government changed some place names to impose more control over the country map, to add “friends of the Syrian people” and well as “heroes” of the war to the Syrian namescape.
Now, with the plans and negotiations for a possible “reconstruction”, new projects emerge, especially for the half-destroyed and half-deserted vicinity of Damascus. This will mean new streets and urban features, and new place names. Thus we can ask the question: what will Syria’s namescape of tomorrow be? Who are the heroes to be commemorated and the villains to be decommemorated ?
Through a series of specific examples on the map of the Syrian Republic I will show the toponymic aspect of the Syrian war, between the government new commemorations and the rebels’ odonomastic guerilla. Then I will explore the possibilities and choices for new toponyms in the new constructions. I will go through both official and “popular” trends. A main question could be asked for the new projects’ toponyms: will Syria’s new namescape reflect the political and community diversity of the country, or will it again reproduce the pyramidal, authoritarian, and centralised reading of political power share in the country? All field work being not yet available, the paper is exploratory and serves as a beginning of a future study by the author.
Mots clés : The Syrian Republic|Civil War|Namescape|New urban projects|New toponymy
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