Recent critical toponymies have convincingly demonstrated that studying place names also reveals much about geopolitics and power relations. In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework for interpreting these toponymies, in order to better decipher, theorise, and compare the many very rich case studies in the field. Our first argument is that the focus of enquiry should be place naming processes rather than place names themselves. We then show that place naming is a dispositif in the Foucauldian sense. This allows us to build a framework that distinguishes between (a) four types of geopolitical contexts, from which place naming processes tend to stem; (b) four types of technologies that are commonly used; and (c) three types of actors. Lastly, we identify the preferential combinations and nexuses between these building blocks of place naming contexts, technologies, and actors.Mohamed Bouazizi was the Tunisian fruit seller whose self-immolation on 17 December 2010 triggered uprisings in the Arab world. Very soon afterwards, he was commemorated in his hometown of Sidi Bouzid, in the capital Tunis, and in Paris, the capital of the former colonial power, by naming streets after him. While referring to the same person, and to the same event he inspired, the naming processes and the places named after him differed strongly in Sidi Bouzid, Tunis, and Paris. In his hometown, the main thoroughfare now bears the name of its most famous son. In Tunis, Bouazizi's name replaced the Boulevard du 7 novembre, which had celebrated Ben Ali's deposition of Bourguiba, as early as 17 February 2011. In Paris, a small section of the Avenue de la Sibelle (14 th arrondissement)where the sidewalk widensprovided a niche for the brand-new Place Mohamed Bouazizi, 1 which the Tunisia-born Parisian mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, inaugurated on 30 June 2011. The different natures of these places draw attention to the different contexts and objectives for naming a place after Bouazizi: The revolutionary context in Tunisia points to naming the town's main landmark after a local,

This article analyses post-apartheid public spaces through social and spatial practices at the Victoria & Alfred (V&A) Waterfront mall in Cape Town. Our empirical evidence suggests that these public spaces involve much more than just consumption patterns, as they sustain and support novel ways of asserting social identities in a new political situation. These changes are, however, quite complex and fraught with ambivalence. Consequently, we scrutinize how race is staged in that space, and how racial diversity produces various kinds of boundaries. We then argue that these urban practices lead us to an understanding of the precarious balance between private and public spaces. We propose the notion of 'publicization' -the process whereby private spaces acquire a more public dimension.

Cette introduction au numéro spécial « Terrain de je » reprend la question du terrain pour en faire un problème scientifique et un objet de recherche épistémologique, en se plaçant à la fois du point de vue du sujet-cherchant – et de la question de son identité – et dans une perspective spatiale. Elle rend compte des principaux débats du colloque qui s’est tenu à Arras sur ce sujet, pour ensuite discuter la question du terrain des points de vue théoriques et épistémologiques. Les apports des épistémologies féministes anglophones (dimension politique, réflexivité et positionnalité, relationnalité, corporalité) sont mis en regard d’une approche française longtemps plus strictement méthodologique mais en plein renouvellement (rapport des spatialités de l’objet et de la pratique, esthétique du terrain, réflexivité). Enfin, cette introduction présente deux propositions : celle d’utiliser le terrain comme levier pour une histoire latourienne de la géographie, où gestes, dimensions matérielles et processus d’écriture seraient centraux ; celle d’aller au-delà des épistémologies existantes pour travailler, avec la psychanalyse transitionnelle, l’idée d’un régime haptique et figuratif de connaissance spatiale autour de l’investigation des dimensions relationnelles et performatives de la pratique et de l’expérience de terrain.