Socioplastics 11956 Who Is Allowed to Name a Neighbourhood?
A name can begin as a description and become a condition of eligibility. NameRitual examines the public procedures through which selected names become authoritative. A designation appears in consultation documents, maps, grant programmes and planning forms until familiarity obscures the decision that installed it. The ritual has force when some actors can define the operative category and others must live within its boundaries. Audra Simpson’s account of Indigenous refusal and political recognition questions how official categories shape belonging. Sophie Chao’s ethnography of human–plant relations in West Papua examines classificatory vocabularies and more-than-human relations. Their work helps show how naming practices distribute authority and how situated descriptions can differ from the categories used by institutions. A neighbourhood could be followed through successive naming processes: local usage, municipal designation, branding campaign, grant application and planning map. Researchers would record who proposed each term, which communities reviewed it and what decisions followed. Interviews could show how residents use names to express memory, affiliation or critique, while policy records reveal which labels affect services and investment. NameRitual makes naming a matter of public procedure. It helps institutions examine who can define a place and how an official label shapes access to benefits, recognition and resources. Documenting the path from proposal to repeated use can show where residents may revise the category and how alternative names remain available in public records. This can improve consultation, heritage work and place-based funding decisions by keeping naming authority visible. An institution can then explain how an official designation relates to the terms used by residents.
REFERENCES
Chao, S. (2022) In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Simpson, A. (2014) Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
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