Media debates over the renaming of the cityscape

This contribution presents two case studies: Poznań in Poland and New Delhi in India, focusing on the media coverage surrounding the re-naming of one street in each location. We apply a uniform method – the Discourse Historical Approach – to analyse newspaper articles, below-the-line comments and Internet forum discussions. As symbolic marking of the territory can be recruited for a political agenda going beyond memory politics, this article not only investigates the public controversy surrounding the (re-)naming of the cityscape, but also addresses the questions of how these debates link inter-discursively with other issues in contemporary politics, such as the independence of the judiciary in Poland and social justice in India.