<
https://theconversation.com/kenya-at-60-how-the-british-used-street-names-to-show-colonial-power-206622>
"Place names, along with other urban symbols, were used as a tool of control
over space in many African countries during the colonial period. This strategy
was epitomised by the British, who applied it in Nairobi and other parts of
Kenya from the late 1800s.
Very few African names were used on the urban landscape. This was a strategy to
actively alienate the native Africans, who had little or no say in the city’s
affairs. Spatially, colonial street names dominated the central part of the
city, while African names were used mainly in the peripheral residential
neighbourhoods.
In early colonial Nairobi, the population was composed mainly of three groups:
British, Asians and indigenous Africans. Africans formed the bulk of the
population. But they were the least represented, socially, economically and
politically. According to the 1948 Nairobi Master Plan for a Colonial Capital,
the British were the smallest population – the city had 642,000 Africans
compared to 10,400 Europeans in 1944 for instance – but they held the political
and economic power, and they applied it vigorously in shaping the identity of
the city.
This was reflected in the naming of streets and places and spatial organisation
of the newly founded city with little consideration to its pre-colonial status.
Streets, buildings and other spaces such as parks were predominantly named
after the British monarchy, colonial administrators, settler farmers and
businessmen, as well as prominent Asian personalities.
The spatial organisation resulted in segregation, as observed in the use of
terms such as European Bazaar, Subordinates’ Quarters, Coolie Landhies (a term
used pejoratively) and the Indian Bazaar. These terms were initially used to
conceptualise space divisions. But they gradually became proper nouns that
represented actual place names.
The goal of this research, co-authored with Frederic Giraut, a professor at the
University of Geneva, was to analyse the different ways in which the British
colonial government deliberately built and imprinted their different urban
symbols, including monuments and names, on the landscape of Nairobi.
Our study concluded that the naming of streets, places and landmarks was used
to show the political, ideological and ethnic dominance of the British. Street
names, in particular, were an important part of the urban nomenclature and
place identification system. They were also symbols of the social and political
organisation of the city.
I have chosen four examples to illustrate how this played out in reality."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
