Naming is a powerful vehicle for promoting identification.

Description

As Alderman (2009) describes, ‘[n]aming is a powerful vehicle for promoting identification with the past and locating oneself within wider networks of memory’ (p. 195). He discusses two ways place and history come together when naming works as either:

symbolic capital’ (pp. 199-204); or as

symbolic resistance’ (pp. 204-208).

Alderman uses examples from the U.S. to illustrate these concepts. For this SJ Learning Journal, in your own words, summarise these two approaches to placenaming. Then, drawing upon either Catherine Nash’s (2009) chapter and/or the article by Breandán Mac Aodha (1989), provide one example for each approach from the Irish context.