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The classroom as “toponymic workspace”: towards a critical pedagogy of campus place renaming

ABSTRACT There are growing debates over removing the names of racist historical figures from public schools and university campus buildings, streets, and other public spaces. This article develops a pedagogical framework for transforming the classroom into a “toponymic workspace,” where students can understand and possibly make interventions in the politics of place (re)naming within their own educational institutions. Moving away from traditionally passive treatments of toponyms, we focus on the materiality and active political-affective work behind the creation and maintenance of commemorative campus toponymies along with the complicity of place naming in creating violent social and cultural orders that have contributed to the production of racially-wounded places. We offer three instructional strategies for developing a critical pedagogy of campus place naming: (1) tracing and mapping the historical-ideological genealogies of “landscape backstories” related to naming practices and named spaces; (2) documenting and empathizing with the “affective entanglements” of educational toponyms associated with historically marginalized identities, memories, and struggles; and (3) interrogating questions of “procedural justice” within university place naming policies. We conclude by underscoring the broader aim of this pedagogical framework, which is to engage students in planning a more inclusive and socially just campus landscape.