Informing, documenting, advising: Integrated name, text and image database on the use of colonial street names from 1945 to the present day

• Applicant: Dr. Verena Ebert
• Subject Area: Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics ; Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 492996932

In the follow-up project, an integrated name, text and image database on the linguistic treatment of colonial street names from 1945 to the present day is to be created, for the first time for a broad, diverse audience: Using over 400 street names compiled from an ex ante perspective (data basis), the digital provision includes all renaming processes for the entire period under investigation in their diachronic-diatopic distribution. This also takes into account later name dispositions in after-colonial efforts such as post-colonial contexts in the FRG and in (West) Germany up to the present day in the course of thematically coherent or similar extensions of old colonial quarters. In addition, all (colonial-critical) contextualizations in the space for retained colonial street names (as ex post reminders) as well as for the new names (in the course of previous renaming) are taken into account through additional communicates (signs, steles). In addition to processing scientific results, the project aims to collect and systematize all name discourses negotiated in (de)colonial contexts from 1990 to the present and then document them in the database. Of interest here are also discursive-linguistic negotiations of colonially 'labeled' names from an ex-post perspective (e.g. Mohrenstraße). The focus is on the (in the majority) unconsidered name suggestions put forward by all participants in the discourse (top-down/bottom-up) to commemorate personalities from Black German/European history, which are intended to bring about a change in perspective towards a critical view of colonial history and its consequences. The associated pro/contra arguments, which have recently been reflected in digital citizen participation formats, are also taken into consideration. In order to support the survey work of all naming processes and discourses negotiated in (de)colonial contexts (ex ante/ex post), the database will be expanded using the Citizen Science approach to include all those involved in the discourse (history and cultural studies, socio-political initiatives, interested civil society, political decision-makers). With the cross-city linguistic analysis of previous negotiation processes, an interdisciplinary range of information on verbalized (critical) attitudes to colonialism and its anchoring in collective memory is being created. At the same time, the documentation is significantly enhanced by the citizen science approach, which is aimed at the entire interested public (top-down/bottom-up). Additionally, the municipalities benefit from the database as an advisory tool, as local renaming controversies can be integrated into the cross-city discourse and various possibilities of linguistic handling of recent street names in (de)colonial contexts can be explored.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Privatdozent Dr. Christian Reul