Negotiating the Urban Past

The Relationality of Metro Station Naming in Suzhou, China

Bibliographic Data

ID19230397
AuthorsHaoyu Hu (0000-0001-7927-3797, Department of Geography and Resource Management The Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong China), Weilin Xu (0000-0002-6474-2957, Department of Geography Beijing Normal University Zhuhai China, corresponding author), Ruizhe Hong (0009-0004-3706-8743, Department of Geography Durham University Durham UK)
Year2026
Publication date2026-06-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0040-747X • E-ISSN: 1467-9663
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/tesg.70094
OpenAlexW7164508576
LanguageEN
References cited58

Cities worldwide increasingly leverage their urban past to advance place‐making, economic revitalisation, regional competitiveness and cultural identity. However, how the urban past can be meaningfully integrated into everyday urban geographies remains a critical and underexplored challenge. This study situates the contested politics of metro station naming within this broader context, demonstrating that the appropriation of urban pasts is a dynamic process of negotiation, relationality and place‐making. It focuses on the disputes over the extent to which historically evocative place names can be used in Suzhou Metro stations during closed‐door naming conferences. Drawing on relational thinking, this paper argues that the sociocultural legitimacy of historically evocative toponyms arises from their relationality with other elements within specific urban contexts. While place names that echo the urban past are often seen as beneficial for identity construction and place branding, their legitimacy becomes contested when they are divorced from their situated contexts

Appropriation · China · Identity (music) · Legitimacy · Negotiation · Place identity · Politics · Situated · Sociocultural evolution · Urban theory · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research · Spatial and Cultural Studies

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