Exploring the Role of Street Names in the Reproduction of Deinstitutionalised Regions

Abstract

Looking theoretically at regions as historically contingent entities that have been evolving over time, this article aims to explore the relationship between the identities of old regions and their symbols through an innovative employment of street names. Methodologically, this study employed Geographic Information System tools, alongside a case study focusing on deinstitutionalised historical regions in the Czech Republic. In this context, street naming practices resulted in different spatial patterns in the symbolic representation of the old regions. It was discovered that regionally named streets perform a different function in terms of the internal and external identity of a region. Hence, our results suggest that the role of street names as actants involved in the reproduction of deinstitutionalised regions is ambiguous and in some ways contradictory. From this perspective, our results are consistent with previous findings that conceptualised deinstitutionalised regions and their boundaries as penumbral entities.