Hierarchy of urban powers and naming the people’s places in Lima, Peru

Abstract

La Parada is an important working class place in Lima and it was also its main wholesale food market for seventy years. It disappeared in 2015 when the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima chose to transform this space and what it represents. On this occasion the city and its markets acquired a new toponymy. The meanings of the toponyms and informal naming practices provide information about the power dynamics that are established between the population and public authorities. The toponymy reveals the negotiations that have taken place over the past twenty years between those who have made and still make the city. Through these names, citizens and public authorities are also discussing the place given to underprivileged social groups in the city.