Why place names should be gender balanced
[Music]
i come
from a balanced family
four girls and four guys
and i am the fourth
our parents made sure that we all
did chose at home
and as we grew up they provided
similar opportunities for us all
because of this background i believe
that the subject of gender equality
is important for both men
and women it must be discussed
in all spheres of human endeavor
that is why i would like to see
equal gender representation
in the naming of public places which are
named after people
but first let me show you why
the subject of name is important to me
personally
my birth name is chanda panda
and somewhere along the way my parents
added allsword
as my roman catholic church baptismal
name
so my full name became auswad
chandapanda
but at some point during my primary
school years
whenever i showed up my friends started
laughing
at my last name saying
he’s counting because
it sounds like okupenda to count
in bamba however
my surname comes from the swahili
language
meaning beloved
i grew so sick and tired
of this constant teasing from my friends
as a kid that i
started feeling uneasy to write down my
phone name
on my notebooks so i only wrote
oswatijanda instead
and in the process school registers
captured this change
and by doing so i created two separate
identities for myself
which i still bear today chanda panda at
home
and among friends and oswald chanda in
government records
this experience ignited in me
the desire to know the meaning
of my first name chanda
but neither my parents nor
grandparents knew its meaning despite my
repeated questions on the same to the
point of bothering them
at one point my mother said ask your
grandmother my grandmother
go back to your mother just like that
at this early age therefore in my fifth
grade
in 1997 in the copper belt province of
zambia
i already developed this passion for
names
many years later while studying at the
university of zambia
my friends and i founded
the encyclopedia of african names
lifelong research and serial public
publication project
which focuses on collecting the names of
people
from our various local languages
their meanings and cultural significance
we got started with the help of some of
our lecturers and
other cultural authorities beyond the
university
i have been the series editor of this
work
for more than 10 years now
i also had the opportunity to work
for a brief period in the name planning
unit
at the institute of the estonian
language in tallinn
estonia my time at the
institute exposed me to that
government’s
policy and practice in regulating the
names of people
and of places and also to the un
treatment of place names
i would like to draw your attention to
the importance of
place names
according to the united nations group of
experts on geographical names
88 000 people died
following an earthquake in northern
pakistan
in 2005 because aid could not reach them
on time
despite the timely efforts by un
humanitarian officers
they were impeded by the lack of
standardized
geographical names
so they were unable to locate the
affected villages and people
in a timely manner
this data that was missing was important
for input into the geographical
information system
to enable rapid response
perhaps many of these 88 000 lives that
were lost
could have been saved had there been
standardized geographical names
on a positive note right about the same
period
following the tsunami natural disaster
indonesia was more aptly prepared
in terms of standardizing geographical
names
therefore they were able to locate
and save many lives
one of the most important elements in
these two examples
was the presence or absence of
standardized
geographical names
in fact according to the un
geographical names are key to the
fulfillment
of all 17 sustainable development goals
as they facilitate the efficient and
effective
delivery of services
and goods moreover if we include
gender balanced place name planning in
the expansion plans of our cities around
the world
we will be facilitating fulfillment of
sdg 5 which focuses on achieving gender
equality
around the world by the year 2030
let us now consider our need
to promote gender balance in place names
despite a un report stating that girls
and women make up half of the world’s
population
less than 10 percent of all the public
places which are named after people
in european cities on average bear
women’s names
some cities scoring as low as
two percent
this grim gendered picture is as
vivid in my home country zambia
and around the world as it is in europe
unfortunately the lack of representation
of female icons in public spaces is
rooted in our collective
cultural past as the human race
vinashe mamvura stated that
if a city’s streets project
a masculinized memory
people get the impression that women did
not participate
in the war but only men did
if we promote gender balance
in place names we will be providing
equal opportunities for young people of
both genders to find
inspiration as their models
or heroes will be put right on display
wherever they are in their respective
cities
however the renaming of public spaces
has been opposed for various reasons
renaming is an expensive exercise for
both
authorities and the general public
for authorities because they have to
bear the cost of erecting
new street signs for the general public
because they have to put up with the
inconvenience of
replacing their ids
and other related personal information
to include the new street names
this in turn changes
their personal identity
despite the expensive nature of this
exercise
some cities such as brussels
copenhagen paris vienna
and johannesburg here in africa are
already doing it
they are already renaming public streets
to promote commemoration of female icons
the other form of opposition is from
some
right-wing politicians who label
the renaming of public places after
women
as a liberal leftist concept
as you may know the liberal leftist
political ideology promotes individual
freedoms
and and social equality and is more open
to change
while some right-wingers are more
conservative and they would just
rather maintain the status quo
but our current topic is too important
to be polarized as
left or right
in africa the situation is different
for instance here in zambia half of our
streets have
no names the situation is
the same in other sub-saharan african
countries according to the un
though it poses many challenges we must
use
this status to our advantage
that we may potentially achieve gender
equality
faster and cheaper
because half of our costs are already
done away with
that is costs attached to the exercise
of renaming
are done away with by the absence of
names
in the first place
so how can we successfully achieve
gender equality in place names
we must take the following four simple
steps
first we must establish
or maintain place name authorities or
committees
and make sure that they agenda balanced
in their composition second
we must formulate and implement standard
professional guidelines for place naming
standardizing this process will ensure
continuity
regardless of who is in charge at any
particular point
third we must promote community
participation
in the name selection process
you’ll agree with me that in every
community
there are members who have lived in
those places
for longer than the authorities
therefore we cannot
do away with
this partnership between the authorities
and the community if we are to
successfully
rewrite this important aspect of our
local heritages
fourth we must set workable timelines
in which we will achieve gender balance
in place names
setting specific timelines will ensure
our
focus our discipline
and our success
it will also provide us with an
opportunity to measure
our progress or the lack of it
so how can i be a part of all this you
may ask
as the general public whether
individually or collectively
we are important stakeholders in
deciding
whom we wish to commemorate in our
public spaces and how they should be
remembered
for instance here in zambia in 2011
we were captivated by the naming of a
new stadium
after our national soccer team the
chipotle polo
who died in a plane crash in 1993
of the cost of gabon
the suggested name by the authorities
was the gabon disaster
victims national heroes
stadium
i wonder what names were rejected to
pave way for this one
however it provoked public outcry in
which the general public suggested the
name
national heroes stadium instead
the suggested name by the public was
eventually
gathered this
shows the importance of our
participation
in this process
we must feel free to walk over to the
offices
of our authorities and suggest the names
that we wish to see
in our public places
i challenge you to walk around wherever
you live
see if you do not agree with me about
the state
of gender exclusion in place names
no society was ever built by only
one gender
therefore place names must reflect
this reality
[Music]
you