Naming streets – constructing heritage in four Swedish post-asylum landscapes

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper explores the processes of naming streets in four Swedish post-asylum landscapes and, consequently, the processes of constructing heritage. The paper shows that the memorialisation of (1) hospital buildings, staff members and architects; (2) the hospitals surrounding nature and park landscape; and (3) historical periods predating the hospital and the time of deinstitutionalisation are central ways in which heritage is constructed. The paper further explores how different discourses materialise in the name-giving processes. The examples are further discussed in relation to arguments made by scholars about how the past of the post-asylum landscape is remembered. In doing so, assumptions about what the heritage of post-asylum landscapes consists of are critically discussed.