Blog

What’s in a Name?

By Anna-Kirstie Ross

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Roman Rain Tree discusses on his campaign to rename the community of Squaw Valley (Now Yokuts Valley) Interview conducted by Anna-Kirstie Ross on March 24, 2023. The term ‘Squaw’ (hereafter Sq___) is widely considered as an offensive, derogatory, racist and misogynistic word used to refer to Native American women. In… Read More

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What does It take to Remember the Alamo?

By Ngoc Tram Nguyen September 26, 2022

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An interview with Kate Rogers, the Executive Director of Alamo Trust, Inc (ATI), the private 501(c)3 non-profit organisation in Texas that manages day-to-day operations and staff at the Alamo. Interview conducted by Ngoc Tram Nguyen, IHJR- EuroClio Research intern, Summer 2022; Harvard College Class of 2022 When Kate Rogers took… Read More

Introducing the New Contested Histories Branding

By Jade

Over the past few months, the Contested Histories team has been working with Carlos Marcelino to develop our new logo! We are over the moon with how it has turned out and it represents a crucial evolution for the Contested Histories project. In this post, we share our brainstorming,… Read More

Statue in Peru of circles of pebbles in the middle of park with hunched figure in centre

Peru: The Battlefield of Memories

By Javier Lizarzaburu 24 August 2021

There is no monument more contested in Lima than El Ojo que Llora (The Eye That Cries). Almost from the beginning it has been opposed and vandalized. A few years ago, the serenity and beauty of the area, in one of the main parks in the city, was compromised when… Read More

Tribute to Edward Mortimer

By Contested Histories Initiative 27 June 2021

The IHJR and the Contested Histories team mourn the loss of our dear friend and stalwart supporter, Advisory Board member, Edward Mortimer, CMG, a Distinguished Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, who passed away on June 18, 2021, at the age of 77. Edward had a long, distinguished career as… Read More

Newly painted mural on the International Wall, Falls Road, Belfast, following the death of George Floyd in the city of Minneapolis on the 25th May 2020.
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Muralling in Belfast

George Floyd and the International Wall

By Luke Dunne 26 March 2021

Smartphones and social media can transfigure a single, horrific event into something malleable and replayable. One might think the contemporary public (hyper)space would render more traditional forms of political communication obsolete. But grieving for George Floyd and with the victims of racism everywhere meant reconceiving that public space. Muralling –… Read More

A woman stands in front of a sculpture, depicting a centaur strangling a man.

Contested Heritage on Film

An interview with Oxford student & former intern Issabella Orlando on her award winning documentary ‘The Return Address’

By Mechteld Visser 11 March 2021

When Issabella Orlando joined the Contested Histories team for a week-long research assignment in December 2020, she already had an extensive project on contested heritage under her belt. While studying full-time at Oxford University, Issabella wrote and directed the short documentary ‘The Return Address: Where Does Heritage Belong?’. The film… Read More

Statue of General Redvers Buller, in it's previous ungraffitied state.
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A Reverse on Buller

How a Council Rescinded its Decision for Relocating a Statue

By Oliver Anthony 26 February 2021

There is a strange irony in Exeter City Council’s recent reversal of their decision to relocate a statue of nineteenth-century military leader, General Sir Redvers Buller; the man who had already earned himself the nickname ‘Reverse Buller’ for his garish military tactics and organisational failings. On January 12th, 2021, it… Read More

Colston's Girl School as seen from the road, with trees in front.

Colston in Bristol

School Renaming

By Samuel Wall 12 February 2021

After a storm comes the calm. When applied to “storms” of popular protest fuelled by contestations over controversial legacies of the past in public spaces – specifically those raised by the Black Lives  Matter Movement concerning colonialism, slavery, and racism in the wake of George Floyd’s killing on  25th May 2020… Read More