September 2015

Minutes of the chairs’ meeting, Joint ICA/IGU Commission on Toponymy, Clarens (South Africa), 17 September 2015

Participants in the meeting: Cosimo Palagiano (chair on behalf of IGU), Paulo de Menezes (chair on behalf of ICA), Peter Jordan (common vice-chair)

Item 1: Participation and organization in/of forthcoming meetings

(1)   29th UNGEGN Session, Bangkok, 25-29 April 2016: Palagiano and de Menezes will take part in the capacity of IGU and ICA observers, respectively, Jordan as head of the Austrian delegation and Convenor of the UNGEGN Working Group on Exonyms. Jordan will apply for a time slot for the presentation of the ICA/IGU Commission on Toponymy (according to the model of New York 2014).

(2)   IGU Congress, Beijing, 21-25 August 2016: Jordan (in accordance and together with Palagiano) has applied for a Commission session titled “Place names as social constructs”. The decision on its acceptance is due by the end of September 2015. Should the session be accepted, Jordan will disseminate a call. The call will be open till 15 January 2016.

(3)   6th Symposion, ICA Commission on the History of Cartography, Dubrovnik, 13-14 October 2016: de Menezes and Jordan will offer Imre Demhardt, the new chair of the ICA History of Cartography Commission, at/after the Cartographic Conference in Vienna in November 2015 that this symposion be co-organized by the ICA/IGU Commission. Whether this offer will be accepted or not, Jordan will take part in this symposion and present a paper.

(4)   Pan-American symposion on place names in co-operation with PAIGH, Petropolis, March or April 2017: de Menezes will organize this symposion together with PAIGH in Petropolis near Rio de Janeiro as a common event of PAIGH and the ICA/IGU Commission.

(5)   International Cartographic Conference, Washington D.C.2-7 July 2017: The ICA/IGU Commission will have its usual toponymic sessions.

(6)   IGU Regional Conference, Quebec, 6-10 August 2018: The ICA/IGU Commission will ask its steering board member Yaïves Ferland from the university hosting the event (Université du Laval) to organize a toponymic session and to propose a theme for the session.

(7)   International Cartographic Conference, Tokyo, 1-5 July 2019: The ICA/IGU Commission will have its usual toponymic sessions.

Item 2: Themes for future symposia and workshops

While sessions in the framework of ICA and IGU conferences organized by the ICA/IGU Commission are rather to be open for all toponymic topics, the topics of symposia and workshops organized by the ICA/IGU Commission are to focus on a specific topic.

The following topics are proposed for such events:

  • Toponyms related to map scales and map purposes (by de Menezes)
  • Indigenous and minority names (by Jordan)
  • Toponymic data bases (by Jordan)

Item 3: Toponymic training courses

Peter Raper and Theodorus du Plessis had in an earlier meeting in Clarens asked for the ICA/IGU Commission to be the umbrella for toponymic training courses at South African and other universities. These courses are to amend the existing UNGEGN courses by additional topics and to be offered not only to university students, but (even mainly) to professionals. Costs are to be covered by participation fees and additional sponsoring as well. Jordan will contact Ferjan Ormeling, the UNGEGN Convenor for Toponymic Training Courses, for his opinion and his consent to using his training course materials.