EUGEO Budapest – 2015  30 August – 2 September 

The fifth EUGEO Congress will take place in Budapest, Hungary on 30 August – 2 September 2015, at Eötvös Loránd University

The programme will include keynote lectures, oral sessions, poster sessions, thematic panels, scientific and social events. Researchers and experts from all over the world are invited to submit paper and poster abstracts after registration. The aim is to facilitate the exchange of new ideas and to offer opportunities for networking within an informal atmosphere. The Congress venues are centrally located and well connected by public transport. PhD students and early career researchers are ecnouraged to actively participate and will be offered a reduced fee.

Proposers:

Peter Jordan,  Cosimo Palagiano

Chair:

Peter Jordan

Session abstract

Apart from the trivial fact that without place names we would not be able to communicate our space-related knowledge verbally, place names offer a variety of opportunities for geographical education, but prompt also some important decisions. Among the opportunities are:
(1) Descriptive (e.g. Newport, Rocky Mountains) as well as commemorative (e.g. Bolivia, Ho-Chi-Minh City) place names give reason to speak about the characteristics of a place.
(2) Places names have usually a long tradition and reflect history and diachronic cultural stratification of a place. They are keys to cultural and settlement history.
(3) Since naming motives vary with cultural characteristics and economic orientations of human communities, place names are condensed narratives about human communities.
(4) Place names always belong to a certain language and give in this way reason to talk about the cultural and linguistic structure of a place, about minority situations etc.
(5) Place names are often in the focus of political conflict indicating at the symbolic level conflicts deeper rooted in society. They are starting points for the discussion of these roots.
(6) Place-names changes are driven by changes of political power or of political mainstream in a given society. They prompt the discussion of these political changes.
Important decisions to be taken, when it comes to use place names in education, are a. o. the choice between endonyms (= names used by the local community) and exonyms (= names used from the outside) as well as between transliteration and transcription systems in converting names from other scripts.

Format

16-20 presenters/speakers without discussant, 4-5 timeslots

Research network

IGU/ICA Commission/Working Group on Toponymy

Chair Professor Cosimo Palagiano

Chair Professor Paulo de Menezes

EUGEO 2015

EUGEO 2015 Abstracts