Could Raffestin have revolutionized toponymy?

Abstract

Raffestin denounced the « totalitarianism of the eye ». He was referring to the propensity of geography to focus on morphological objects, the most visible and obvious, rather than on the relationship of societies to systems of forms. By analogy, the « dictatorship of the legible » covers the fascination of critical toponymy with official names – those that can be easily read on maps, city plans, or street signs, to the detriment of informal, vernacular, or popular toponymies. To take these toponymies seriously is to question the presuppositions of a field of research that overestimates the power of official toponymy and its hegemony. The power relationships that are played out in the tension and interactions between heterogeneous systems can only be revealed by studying the relationship that societies have with all the toponymic resources at their disposal.