Glocal Naming and Shaming: Toponymic (Inter-)National Relations on Lagos and New York Streets

Abstract

Streets are sites of hegemony and counter-hegemony, of inclusion and exclusion, of incorporation and expulsion, and of cooperation or conflict. Thus, in the cultural geography of cities, commemorative street names are critical sites of social reproduction. Recent literature on toponymy calls attention to such practices as important cultural and political arenas for understanding socio-political processes, but often focuses on the politics and sociality of street naming within local, national politics to the exclusion of how local politics intersects with international politics. This chapter examines the politics of spatial inscription and the social reproduction of ‘place’ or ‘space’ on a street corner in New York City named after Kudirat Abiola, an assassinated woman activist in Nigeria, and the retaliatory renaming by the military regime of a Lagos street hosting the US Embassy after the African American anti-establishment activist Louis Farrakhan. Subsequently, the next democratic government of Nigeria renamed the street, this time after the US ambassador, the African American Walter Carrington. Toponymy, the chapter concludes, can thus be seen as a form of retortion in international relations.