Vol. 41 No. 3 (1993)
Research Article

Power and Placenames: A Case Study From the Contemporary Amazon Frontier

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  • J. Timmons Roberts
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/nam.1993.41.3.159

Published 1993-09-01

Copyright (c) 1993 Maney

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Abstract

A political economy of placenames is proposed in an attempt to discover who has the power to name places and what values the names represent. Studies of power and placenames are reviewed and directions for further research are indicated. Placenaming in the state of Pará on the Brazilian Amazon frontier is examined and settlement names are analyzed. Government map-makers and politicians, relations with indigenous populations, and settlers' hopes for better lives are shown to interact with other factors and with chance to create the changing “namescape” of the Amazon frontier.

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