RT Article
T1 Settler-Colonialism, Memoricide and Indigenous Toponymic Memory: The Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State
JF Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies
VO 14
IS 1
SP 3
OP 57
A1 Masalha, Nur 1957-
LA English
PB Edinburgh Univ. Press
YR 2015
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1575184087
AB Cartography, place-naming and state-sponsored explorations were central to the modern European conquest of the earth, empire building and settler-colonisation projects. Scholars often assume that place names provide clues to the historical and cultural heritage of places and regions. This article uses social memory theory to analyse the cultural politics of place-naming in Israel. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs' study of the construction of social memory by the Latin Crusaders and Christian medieval pilgrims, the article shows Zionists' toponymic strategies in Palestine, their superimposition of Biblical and Talmudic toponyms was designed to erase the indigenous Palestinian and Arabo-Islamic heritage of the land. In the pre-Nakba period Zionist toponymic schemes utilised nineteenth century Western explorations of Biblical ‘names' and ‘places' and appropriated Palestinian toponyms. Following the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, the Israeli state, now in control of 78 percent of the land, accelerated its toponymic project and pursued methods whose main features were memoricide and erasure. Continuing into the post-1967 occupation, these colonial methods threaten the destruction of the diverse historical cultural heritage of the land.
K1 Arabo-Islamic heritage
K1 Biblical Archaeology
K1 cultural appropriation
K1 Erasure and memoricide
K1 Israeli Government Names Committees
K1 Palestinian Nakba
K1 Place names in Palestine
K1 Settler-colonialism
K1 Toponymic memory
DO 10.3366/hlps.2015.0103