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News

Featured News

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Geography Alumna Name Dean at Virginia Tech

June 20, 2025

UT Alumna Named Dean of Virginia Tech Geography Department

Department of Geography PhD alumna Saskia L. van de Gevel has been named dean of Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment.

Van de Gevel has served as chair of Appalachian State University’s Department of Geography and Planning since 2020. She built a reputation there as a passionate advocate for geographic education with an immersive, hands-on teaching style. As chair, van de Gevel secured major research grants, revised the curriculum and launched an online graduate certificate program in geographic information science, and implemented a new scholarship for first-generation college students.

She officially starts at Virginia Tech on July 1 and will be on the Blacksburg campus starting August 1.

Read more about van de Gevel’s new leadership role.

Filed Under: Alumni News, Department News, Featured News

A family sitting outside and talking

The Conversation: ‘Trump moves to gut low-income energy assistance as summer heat descends and electricity prices rise’

May 14, 2025

Cities like Houston get high humidity in addition to the heat, making summer almost unbearable without cooling. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Conor Harrison, University of South Carolina; Elena Louder, University of South Carolina; Nikki Luke, University of Tennessee, and Shelley Welton, University of Pennsylvania

The U.S. is headed into what forecasters expect to be one of the hottest summers on record, and millions of people across the country will struggle to pay their power bills as temperatures and energy costs rise.

A 2023 national survey found that nearly 1 in 4 Americans were unable to pay their full energy bill for at least one month, and nearly 1 in 4 reported that they kept their homes at unsafe temperatures to save money. By 2025, updated polling indicated nearly 3 in 4 Americans are worried about rising energy costs.

Conservative estimates suggest that utilities shut off power to over 3 million U.S. households each year because the residents cannot pay their bills.

This problem of high energy prices isn’t lost on the Trump administration.

On the first day of his second term in 2025, President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency by executive order, saying that “high energy prices … devastate Americans, particularly those living on low- and fixed incomes.”

Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright raised concerns about utility disconnections and outlined a mission to “shrink that number, with the target of zero.”

Yet, the administration’s 2026 budget proposal zeros out funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, the federal program that administers funding to help low-income households pay their utility bills. And on April 1, 2025, the administration laid off the entire staff of the LIHEAP office.

A billboard in Phoenix reads 118 degrees at 5:13 p.m. on July 19, 2023.
During the hottest periods, even nighttime temperatures might not drop below 90 in Phoenix. Without air conditioning, homes can become dangerously hot. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

Many people already struggle to cobble together enough help from various sources to pay their power bills. As researchers who study energy insecurity, we believe gutting the federal office responsible for administering energy bill assistance will make it even harder for Americans to make ends meet.

The high stakes of energy affordability

We work with communities in South Carolina and Tennessee where many residents struggle to heat and cool their homes.

We see how high energy prices force people to make dangerous trade-offs. Low-income households often find themselves choosing whether to buy necessities, pay for child care or pay their utility bills.

One elderly person we spoke with for our research, Sarah, explained that she routinely forgoes buying medications in order to pay her utility bill. Another research participant who connects low-income families to energy bill assistance in Tennessee said: “I’ve gone into these homes, and it’s so hot. Your eyes roll in the back of your head. It’s like you can’t breathe. How do you sit in here? It’s just unreal.”

Unfortunately, these stories are increasingly common, especially in low-income communities and communities of color.

Electricity prices are predicted to rise with worsening climate change: More frequent heat waves and extreme weather events drive up demand and put pressure on the grid. Furthermore, rising energy demand from data centers – supercharged by the increasing energy use by artificial intelligence – is accelerating price increases.

Shrinking resources for assistance

LIHEAP, created in 1981, provides funding to states as block grants to help low-income families pay their utility bills. In fiscal year 2023, the program distributed US$6.1 billion in energy assistance, helping some 5.9 million households avoid losing power connections.

The program’s small staff played critical roles in disbursing this money, providing implementation guidelines, monitoring state-level fund management and tracking and evaluating program effectiveness.

People wait in a line going around a building. Some have umbrellas.
A long line of utility customers wait to apply for help from the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program in Trenton, N.J., in 2011. In 2023, around 6 million households benefited from LIHEAP. AP Photo/Mel Evans

LIHEAP has historically prioritized heating assistance in cold-weather states over cooling assistance in warmer states. However, recent research shows a need to revisit the allocation formula to address the increasing need for air conditioning. The layoffs removed staff who could direct this work.

It is unlikely that other sources of funding can fill in the gaps if states do not receive LIHEAP funds from the federal government. The program’s funding has never been high enough to meet the need. In 2020, LIHEAP provided assistance to just 16% of eligible households.

Our research has found that, in practice, many households rely on a range of local nonprofits, faith-based organizations and informal networks of family and friends to help them pay their bills and keep the power on.

For example, a research participant named Deborah reported that when faced with a utility shut-off, she “drove from church to church to church” in search of assistance. United Way in South Carolina received over 16,000 calls from people seeking help to pay their utility bills in 2023.

These charitable services are an important lifeline for many, especially in the communities we study in the South. However, research has shown that faith-based programs do not have the reach of public programs.

Without LIHEAP, the limited funds provided by nonprofits and the personal connections that people patch together will be stretched even thinner, especially as other charitable services, such as food banks, also face funding cuts.

What’s ahead

The $4.1 billion that Congress allocated to LIHEAP for the 2025 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, has already been disbursed. Going forward, however, cuts to LIHEAP staff affect its ability to respond to growing need. Congress now has to decide if it will kill the program’s future funding as well.

Maricopa County in Arizona, home to Phoenix, illustrates what’s at stake. Annual heat-related deaths have risen 1,000% there in the past decade, from 61 to 602. Hundreds of these deaths occurred indoors.

A workman fixes an air conditioning unit
Cooling becomes essential during Arizona’s extreme summers. Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, reported more than 600 heat-related deaths in 2024. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

We believe gutting LIHEAP puts the goal of energy affordability for all Americans – and Americans’ lives – in jeopardy. Until more affordable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, can be scaled up, an expansion of federal assistance programs is needed, not a contraction.

Increasing the reach and funding of LIHEAP is one option. Making home weatherization programs more effective is another.

Governments could also require utilities to forgive past-due bills and end utility shut-offs during the hottest and coldest months. About two dozen states currently have rules to prevent shut-offs during the worst summer heat.

For now, the cuts mean more pressure on nonprofits, faith-based organizations and informal networks. Looking ahead to another exceptionally hot summer, we can only hope that cuts to LIHEAP staff don’t foreshadow a growing yet preventable death toll.

Etienne Toussaint, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, and Ann Eisenberg, a law professor at West Virginia University, contributed to this article.The Conversation

Conor Harrison, Associate Professor of Economic Geography, University of South Carolina; Elena Louder, Postdoctoral Researcher in Geography, University of South Carolina; Nikki Luke, Assistant Professor of Human Geography, University of Tennessee, and Shelley Welton, Professor of Law and Energy Policy, University of Pennsylvania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Filed Under: Department News, Featured News, Human Geography

Mountainous landscape

The Conversation: ‘From Greenland to Fort Bragg, America is caught in a name game where place names become political tools’

April 2, 2025

President Donald Trump re-renamed Denali as Mount McKinley in 2025. Tim Rains/National Park Service, CC BY
Seth T. Kannarr, University of Tennessee; Derek H. Alderman, University of Tennessee, and Jordan Brasher, Macalester College

Place names are more than just labels on a map. They influence how people learn about the world around them and perceive their place in it.

Names can send messages and suggest what is and isn’t valued in society. And the way that they are changed over time can signal cultural shifts.

The United States is in the midst of a place-renaming moment. From the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, to the return of Forts Bragg and Benning and the newly re-renamed Mount McKinley in Alaska’s Denali National Park, we are witnessing a consequential shift in the politics of place naming.

This sudden rewriting of the nation’s map – done to “restore American greatness,” according to President Donald Trump’s executive order that made some of them official – is part of a name game that recognizes place names as powerful brands and political tools.

In our research on place naming, we explore how this “name game” is used to assert control over shared symbols and embed subtle and not-so-subtle messages in the landscape.

As geography teachers and researchers, we also recognize the educational and emotional impact the name game can have on the public.

Place names can have psychological effects

Renaming a place is always an act of power.

People in power have long used place naming to claim control over the identity of the place, bolster their reputations, retaliate against opponents and achieve political goals.

These moves can have strong psychological effects, particularly when the name evokes something threatening. Changing a place name can fundamentally shift how people view, relate to or feel that they belong within that place.

In Shenandoah County, Virginia, students at two schools originally named for Confederate generals have been on an emotional roller coaster of name changes in recent years. The schools were renamed Mountain View and Honey Run in 2020 amid the national uproar over the murder of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.

Four years later, the local school board reinstated the original Confederate names after conservatives took control of the board.

One Black eighth grader at Mountain View High School — now re-renamed Stonewall Jackson High School — testified at a board meeting about how the planned change would affect her:

“I would have to represent a man that fought for my ancestors to be slaves. If this board decides to restore the names, I would not feel like I was valued and respected,” she said. The board still approved the change, 5-1.

Even outside of schools, place names operate as a “hidden curriculum.” They provide narratives to the public about how the community or nation sees itself – as well as whose histories and perspectives it considers important or worthy of public attention.

Place names affect how people perceive, experience and emotionally connect to their surroundings in both conscious and subconscious ways. Psychologists, sociologists and geographers have explored how this sense of place manifests itself into the psyche, creating either attachment or aversion to place, whether it’s a school, mountain or park.

A tale of two forts

Renaming places can rally a leader’s supporters through rebranding.

Trump’s orders to restore the names Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, both originally named for Confederate generals, illustrate this effect. The names were changed to Fort Liberty and Fort Moore in 2023 after Congress passed a law banning the use of Confederate names for federal installations.

A couple dozen people stand behind a new sign reading
Veterans and other guests posed in 2023 next to a newly unveiled sign for Fort Moore, named for Lt. Gen. Harold ‘Hal’ Moore, who served in Vietnam, and his wife, Julia Moore. In 2025, President Donald Trump reverted the name back to Fort Benning. Cheney Orr/AFP via Getty Images

Trump made a campaign promise to his followers to “bring back the name” of Fort Bragg if reelected.

To get around the federal ban, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth identified two unrelated decorated Army veterans with the same last names — Bragg and Benning — but without any Confederate connections, to honor instead.

Call it a sleight of hand or a stroke of genius if you’d like, this tactic allowed the Department of Defense to revive politically charged names without violating the law.

A soldier walks behind a sign reading 'Headquarters XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg'
A soldier walks beside a sign that was unveiled when Fort Liberty was rededicated as Fort Bragg during a ceremony on base on March 7, 2025. AP Photo/Chris Seward

The restoration of the names Bragg and Benning may feel like a symbolic homecoming for those who resisted the original name change or have emotional ties to the names through their memories of living and serving on the base, rather than a connection to the specific namesakes.

However, the names are still reminders of the military bases’ original association with defenders of slavery.

The place-renaming game

A wave of place-name changes during the Obama and Biden administrations focused on removing offensive or derogatory place names and recognizing Indigenous names.

For example, Clingmans Dome, the highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains, was renamed to Kuwohi in September 2024, shifting the name from a Confederate general to a Cherokee word meaning “the mulberry place.”

Under the Trump administration, however, place-name changes are being advanced explicitly to push back against reform efforts, part of a broader assault on what Trump calls “woke culture.”

A view of mountains
The view from a lookout tower on Kuwohi, formerly known as Clingmans Dome, in the Great Smoky Mountains. National Park Service

President Barack Obama changed Alaska’s Mount McKinley to Denali in 2015 to acknowledge Indigenous heritage and a long-standing name for the mountain. Officials in Alaska had requested the name change to Denali years earlier and supported the name change in 2015.

Trump, on his first day in office in January 2025, moved to rename Denali back to Mount McKinley, over the opposition of Republican politicians in Alaska. The state Legislature passed a resolution a few days later asking Trump to reconsider.

Georgia Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter made a recent legislative proposal to rename Greenland as “Red, White, and Blueland” in support of Trump’s expansionist desire to purchase the island, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark.

Danish officials and Greenlanders saw Carter’s absurd proposal as insulting and damaging to diplomatic relations. It is not the first time that place renaming has been used as a form of symbolic insult in international relations.

Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America might have initially seemed improbable, but it is already reflected in common navigation apps.

A screenshot of a Google Map showing the words 'Gulf of America'
Google Maps displays the name ‘Gulf of America’ instead of Gulf of Mexico in March 2025. Google INEGI

A better way to choose place names

When leaders rename a place in an abrupt, unilateral fashion — often for ideological reasons — they risk alienating communities that deeply connect with those names as a form of memory, identity and place attachment.

A better alternative, in our view, would be to make renaming shared landscapes participatory, with opportunities for meaningful public involvement in the renaming process.

This approach does not avoid name changes, but it suggests the changes should respond to the social and psychological needs of communities and the evolving cultural identity of places — and not simply be used to score political points.

Instead, encouraging public participation — such as through landscape impact assessments and critical audits that take the needs of affected communities seriously — can cultivate a sense of shared ownership in the decision that may give those names more staying power.

The latest place renamings are already affecting the classroom experience. Students are not just memorizing new place labels, but they are also being asked to reevaluate the meaning of those places and their own relationship with the nation and the world.

As history has shown around the world, one of the major downsides of leaders imposing name changes is that the names can be easily replaced as soon as the next regime takes power. The result can be a never-ending name game.The Conversation

Seth T. Kannarr, PhD Candidate in Geography, University of Tennessee; Derek H. Alderman, Chancellor’s Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee, and Jordan Brasher, Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography, Macalester College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Filed Under: Department News, Featured News

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Nashville Housing Research Earns Geography Award

December 6, 2024

Filed Under: Department News, Featured News

A man showing students a map

UT Geography Students Update Firefighters’ Maps

December 5, 2024

Filed Under: Department News, Featured News

Landscape photo of mountains

The Conversation: ‘From Confederate general to Cherokee heritage: Why returning the name Kuwohi to the Great Smoky Mountains matters’

November 15, 2024

View from the overlook on Kuwohi of the mountain peaks and ridges of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Getty Images
Seth T. Kannarr, University of Tennessee and Derek H. Alderman, University of Tennessee

It’s not every day that the name of a mountain is restored to the one used by Indigenous peoples for centuries.

But after nearly two years of trying, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians finally convinced the U.S. Board on Geographic Names on Sept. 18, 2024, to formally agree to rename the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park of Tennessee to Kuwohi (koo-whoa-hee).

The mountain, known as “Clingmans Dome” since 1859, has been a sacred place for the Cherokee people, serving as a place of prayer, reflection and gathering of mulberries for medicine. In fact, the name Kuwohi translates to “the mulberry place” in Tsalagi, the Cherokee language.

Though known as Kuwohi by the Cherokee people for hundreds of years, explorer Arnold Guyot effectively ignored that history after he surveyed the mountain range in 1859. Guyot named the peak “Clingmans Dome” after his friend Thomas Lanier Clingman, a North Carolina U.S. senator and a Confederate brigadier general during the Civil War. Clingman never set foot on this mountain, but his name remained there for 165 years until now.

What is place name repatriation?

The government’s renaming of the mountain to Kuwohi is a significant example of place name repatriation, or the return of an original, Indigenous name to a particular place or landscape.

Sometimes the primary motivation for place renaming is to remove an offensive or irrelevant place name from the landscape, such as the renaming of Squaw Peak in Arizona to Piostewa Peak in 2008.

In other cases, such as the renaming of Mount McKinley in Alaska to Denali in 2016, the motivation was to create a more authentic and historically accurate name for a particular place.

In the case of Kuwohi, the return to its original name was a mixture of both. The government’s decision recognized the original Indigenous name and removed the name of a white man who defended the enslavement of African people. It is also about restoring a larger sense of respect and recognition of Indigenous identity across the landscape.

Just as important is the fact that it was individuals from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who put forward this proposal and remained the lead throughout the process.

Place naming is only truly reparative if these processes truly reflect the agency and intent of these historically oppressed groups. Otherwise, it contributes to the long history of dismissing Indigenous claims to land and culture by not involving them.

A concrete ramp winds its way to an observation tower in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
View of observation tower on Kuwohi in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Joshua Moore/Getty Images

Why does place naming matter?

A name is one of the most fundamental ways to identify and give meaning to places. In other words, the name of the place makes a big difference in how people perceive it.

There is growing public recognition that place names can transmit harmful messages that misrepresent the history and identity of minority communities. Place names also can demonstrate how those in power have used them to disrespect and misrepresent ethnic and racial groups that have been historically discriminated against.

For those groups, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names found in 2022 that derogatory place names are a source of recurring trauma.

If place naming did not matter, disputes over name changes would not occur. Some critics find place renaming to be an example of unnecessary political correctness, while others see it as a meaningful solution that will leave a lasting positive impact.

The elimination of names of Confederate generals from some U.S. military bases provides another example. Former President Donald Trump has pledged to restore the name “Fort Bragg” to the North Carolina Army base that’s known today as Fort Liberty if reelected. Originally named after Braxton Bragg, a slave-owning Confederate general, the fort was one of nine U.S. installations that the Defense Department ordered in 2023 to have their names changed to among 3,700 recommendations.

Trump’s stance exemplifies the wave of backlash that has occurred against local and state school officials across the country that have removed the names of Confederate generals and others from public buildings.

Two Cherokee women stand next to each other as they pose for a photograph.
Lavita Hill (L) and Mary Crowe in 2022. Cherokee One Feather

Despite such backlash, efforts by Indigenous people and civil rights advocates slowly move forward and are seen across the U.S. in places like streets, neighborhoods, college campuses and beyond.

For Lavita Hill and Mary Crowe, the two members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who took the lead on submitting the proposal, the renaming of Kuwohi was a moment of success. Their campaign was heavily inspired by the renaming of Mount Doane to First Peoples Mountain in Yellowstone National Park in 2022.

Crowe told reporters that she saw friends and relatives shed tears when they learned of the name change. “It was humbling,” she said. “It was beautiful.”

What comes next?

The success of the effort to restore the name Kuwohi may help other communities in their ongoing place renaming efforts.

One such proposal involves a 100-year-old fight to rename Mount Rainier in Washington state to “Tacoma,” the original name given to it by the Salish people of the Pacific Northwest.

The sun sets on a range of mountains.
View of the Great Smoky Mountains at sunset from Kuwohi. Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket/Getty Images

This movement began in 1924 among the Salish and other groups because its namesake, Peter Rainier, was a British naval officer who was known as being “anti-American.”

Another example is a push by 20 different Indigenous tribes, including the Lakota Nation and the Oglala Sioux Tribe, to rename Devils Tower in Wyoming to Bear Lodge. The current name of this butte resulted from a poor English translation of the original Indigenous name of “bear lodge” to “bad god’s tower.” Over time, the name was simplified to “Devils Tower.”

As geographers who have studied the significance of place renaming, we have learned that it is important to engage the folks that these movements will benefit most in all conversations and decisions.

What is at stake is not just removing insulting names, but also ensuring that the process of changing place names is collaborative of all Americans, especially historically oppressed communities, to truly be restorative and meaningful for society.The Conversation

Seth T. Kannarr, PhD Student in Geography, University of Tennessee and Derek H. Alderman, Chancellor’s Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Filed Under: Department News, Featured News

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Derek Alderman in ‘The Conversation’: Offensive names dot the American street map − a new app provides a way to track them

August 16, 2024

Clear County, Colo., had three roads using the word ‘sq—’ until May 2024, when officials renamed them. Tom Hellauer/Denver Gazette
Derek H. Alderman, University of Tennessee; Daniel Oto-Peralías, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, and Joshua F.J. Inwood, Penn State

The racially motivated tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, when a white supremacist murdered nine Black worshippers, and the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, two years later compelled Americans to confront the role played by memorials, monuments and other symbols in glorifying racist ideologies.

George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020 only lent urgency to that challenge.

Part of the racial reckoning in the wake of Floyd’s death is a movement to remove offensive names from public places. Some names perpetuate demeaning slurs and stereotypes against people of color. Others honor historical figures linked to racism and colonization. This movement is what we geographers call America’s “renaming moment.”

Government officials, activists and other people have called for a renaming of certain places and institutions. Examples include removing Christopher Columbus’ name from a Chicago public school and erasing the name of former KKK leader and governor Bibb Graves from a University of Alabama building. The elimination of names of Confederate generals from several U.S. military bases provides another example.

These changes have become flash points of community activism and debate, both in support of and in resistance to name revisions.

A widespread element in this renaming moment are offensive street names. We believe discussions and decisions about removing these names may benefit from comprehensive sources of information that allow the public to know how pervasive a problem the country might be confronting.

The recent release of an app developed by STNAMES LAB, an international team of scholars of place names, allows users to conduct nationwide inventories of discriminatory roadway names, revealing how often and where they are found.

We believe the app is an important educational tool. It will help communities understand how discriminatory beliefs are woven into everyday spaces and the harm caused by offensive names.

After tracking a few of America’s most contested place and institution names, we believe the app will help people see the changes necessary to recognize and repair past wrongs in street naming.

Recognizing that names can harm and heal

There is growing public recognition that place names are not neutral identifiers of locations. Rather, place names can transmit harmful messages that misrepresent the history and identity of minority communities. As a result, they work against the possibility of a more equal society.

One highly publicized effort at identifying and replacing offensive place names happened in November 2021.

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold that post, ordered the removal of the word “squaw,” hereafter called “sq—,” from the names of 650 mountains, rivers and other sites on federal lands. Haaland’s order capped many years of demands from Native American groups to eradicate the racist and sexist label.

Then, in 2022, Haaland established the Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names, comprising members from tribal nations, Native Hawaiian organizations and scholars. Its guiding principles call on the U.S. to recognize the historical role of racism and sexism in naming places. They also highlight how those in power have used names to disrespect, misrepresent and control certain groups that have been historically discriminated against.

Drawing from public comments over two years, the committee found that derogatory place names are a source of recurring trauma for groups that have been historically discriminated against. As one Native American community leader told the committee, “Names matter, as they can build or break a relationship with the land and have the power to uplift or marginalize communities.”

Similarly, a 2022 report by the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers and the Wilderness Society found derogatory place names can create an unwelcoming environment that some people avoid. Additionally, a 2022 study by Emory University found that homes on streets named for pro-slavery Confederate figures sell for less and take longer to sell than comparable houses on nearby roads.

Renaming roads serves as an important moment of community reconciliation. That’s because the frequent use of offensive street names exacts a hefty social and psychological toll on marginalized communities, according to the cultural historian Deirdre Mask.

When hurtful names are removed from roads, some members of oppressed communities describe how the spirit or feeling of places can change and allow healing to begin.

The difference an audit makes

The Interior Department committee suggests that efforts to change offensive names should be driven by research. It encourages local residents to identify where derogatory place names exist, when and how they were named, and how those names can harm the well-being of community members.

Data scientist Catherine D’Ignazio and her team at the Data + Feminism Lab agree. They call for conducting audits that collect and visualize data on unjust names, to challenge the damaging effects and abuses of power behind these symbols.

The newly released street names app from STNAMES LAB allows people to do that. Fed with Open Street Map data, it lets users carry out queries, as well as map and download streets containing certain terms.

Once users enter a name, they can check the specific location of named roads on a map. They can also download query results as a spreadsheet to get the full list of streets.

The app offers an easy visualization of the frequency and geographic distribution of names. You can see whether the name is found across the nation or concentrated in a specific region.

Demonstrating the app

To illustrate the app’s capabilities, we searched for names that have sparked public controversy.

Federal condemnation of “sq—” as a place name does not mean that local authorities will follow suit, even if some cities and states are already doing so. We found 429 streets scattered across 47 states with a name containing the word “sq—.”

Although “sq—” originated in the Algonquian language, European settlers corrupted and misused the word in reducing Native American women to a simplistic and sexualized image. Being called “sq—” is still a painful daily reality for Indigenous women. Many of them say the term injures their self-image and sense of belonging.

Map of offensive street names in the U.S.
Map of U.S. roads named ‘sq—’ from the street names app. https://en.stnameslab.com/the-project/

The street name app exposes other racist Native American stereotypes. Variations of “redman/men” and “redskin” appear on 211 roads.

“Redskin” is a portrayal of Native Americans as warlike and dangerous. According to Native writer Angelina Newsome, colonialists often used it interchangeably with “savage.”

We found 415 roads in 46 states using the word “savage” in their name.

Though references to “redman” and “redskin” have long shown up in consumer products and sports team mascots, many Native groups challenge these stereotypes as demeaning.

Map of offensive street signs in U.S.
Map of roads named ‘redman,’ ‘redmen’ or ‘redskin’ from the street names app. https://en.stnameslab.com/the-project/

Searching for offensive street names across the country is about more than simply collecting information. Data and maps can be part of the process of expanding one’s sphere of awareness and caring for people living with unjust naming practices.

Tracking and visualizing these inequalities is key to developing the “civic imagination” that scholar Catherine D’Ignazio believes is necessary to imagine and call for more inclusive alternatives to the current American landscape of names.

What is at stake is not just removing insulting names in and of themselves, but ensuring that the places marked by these names feel more welcoming and respectful of all Americans.The Conversation

Derek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee; Daniel Oto-Peralías, Associate Professor of Economics, Profesor Titular de Economía, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, and Joshua F.J. Inwood, Professor of Geography and Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Filed Under: Department News, Featured News, Human Geography

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  • The Conversation: ‘From Greenland to Fort Bragg, America is caught in a name game where place names become political tools’
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College of Arts and Sciences

Burchfiel Geography Building
1000 Phillip Fulmer Way
Room 304
Knoxville, TN 37996-0925
865-974-2418
utkgeog@utk.edu

 

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The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996
865-974-1000

The flagship campus of the University of Tennessee System and partner in the Tennessee Transfer Pathway.

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