Inventing the Salish Sea: Exploring the Performative Act of Place Naming off the Pacific Coast of North America

Abstract

Over the past two decades, a growing number of scholars have begun to explore the cultural politics of toponymic inscription. The current study contributes to the emerging literature on critical place-name studies by examining the cultural and political implications of the recent designation of the “Salish Sea,” a new name given to the water body adjacent to the shared Pacific coastline of Washington State and the Province of British Columbia. Through a critical analysis of archival materials and semi-structured interviews with participants from a variety of different groups, this case study adopts a performative approach to consider the ways in which the naming of places is implicated in the rescaling of public conceptions of “place” through the performative enactment of spatial identities. In doing so, it illustrates the importance of narrative as an integral part of the cultural production of place. Although this new toponym was initially promoted to raise ecological awareness, it also has considerable implications for reshaping the political, economic, and cultural geographies of the region. Furthermore, the findings conclude that when assessing the designation’s impact on the relations between the Indigenous and Settler populations of the area, evidence points to the official naming being representative of an act of “anti-conquest”: an act that glorifies the Indigenous culture while providing no actual exchange of power or opportunity for increased levels of self-determination.