Following the military coup against Salvador Allende in September 1973, the Chilean Armed Forces transformed the former stadium of Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos into the country’s largest detention centre for political prisoners, where abuse was rife. Following the transition to democracy, the Estadio Nacional possessed a complicated status functioning… Read More
The vandalism of the Hans Egede statue in June 2020, and subsequent discussions surrounding the suitability of its positioning upon a mountaintop in Nuuk, catalysed debate over the colonial past, present, and future of Greenland, known to its indigenous population as Kalaallit Nunaat. Following a community-based political debate and vote,… Read More
In 2015 the #Rhodesmustfall protests erupted at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. The resulting debate and movement soon spread globally, with similar protests occurring at the University of Oxford. This case study shows how protests over symbolic historical representations can draw wider attention to issues of structural… Read More
Originally erected in 1813, the statue of British Colonial Admiral Horatio Nelson, enjoyed 206 years of undisturbed tenure in the centre of Bridgetown. However, in recent years Barbados has undergone a journey of renewing national identity and demarcating new heroes, causing Nelson to come under scrutiny. This case raises questions… Read More
The Grūtas Park was created to collect and display Soviet-era monuments that had been removed from public spaces following Lithuanian independence. This case study provides an example of an effective and alternate remedy to destruction or erasure of contested historical legacies, but also shows the political, social, and economic complexities… Read More
In June 2016, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi was gifted to the University of Ghana in Accra, by the Indian President. Shortly after, staff and students at the University circulated a petition calling for the statue’s removal due to Gandhi’s racist writings on Africans. In 2018, two years after the… Read More
On the 16th of December 1838 the infamous Battle of Blood River on the banks of the Ncome River between Zulu warriors and Afrikaans Voortrekkers took place. Commemoration and mythologization of the battle became a key focal point of the ethno-nationalism of each group and remained heavily contested. In the… Read More
Built in 1938, the Hakkō Ichiu Tower in the Miyazaki prefecture was meant to embody the Japanese spirit. The stone reliefs of the Tower, as well as the carving ‘Hakkō Ichiu’ represent a world under Japanese rule. As a result of the Second World War, the slogan was removed. In… Read More
In 2017, a civil society organisation unveiled a San Francisco monument dedicated to the “comfort women,” women compelled to provide sexual services for the Japanese military during World War II. The monument became the centre of an international conflict, with both passionate supporters and fierce critics of the monument and… Read More
Captain James Cook’s landing site at Kamay Botany Bay has been a focus of public debate, contestation, commemoration, celebration, and mourning in Australia since the 1860s. The recent controversies over the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Cook’s landing presented a new opportunity for multi-stakeholder discussions to take place. Focused… Read More