Decolonizing Colonial Heritage

Decolonizing Colonial Heritage
Author: Britta Timm Knudsen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2021-09-29
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000473600

Decolonizing Colonial Heritage explores how different agents practice the decolonization of European colonial heritage at European and extra-European locations. Assessing the impact of these practices, the book also explores what a new vision of Europe in the postcolonial present could look like. Including contributions from academics, artists and heritage practitioners, the volume explores decolonial heritage practices in politics, contemporary history, diplomacy, museum practice, the visual arts and self-generated memorial expressions in public spaces. The comparative focus of the chapters includes examples of internal colonization in Europe and extends to former European colonies, among them Shanghai, Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro. Examining practices in a range of different contexts, the book pays particular attention to sub-national actors whose work is opening up new futures through their engagement with decolonial heritage practices in the present. The volume also considers the challenges posed by applying decolonial thinking to existing understandings of colonial heritage. Decolonizing Colonial Heritage examines the role of colonial heritage in European memory politics and heritage diplomacy. It will be of interest to academics and students working in the fields of heritage and memory studies, colonial and imperial history, European studies, sociology, cultural studies, development studies, museum studies, and contemporary art. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylor francis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Colonial Heritage and Urban Transformation in the Global South

Colonial Heritage and Urban Transformation in the Global South
Author: Christian Ernsten
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-10-29
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9783030858087

This book traces and analyses the role of heritage in the urban transformation of the city of Cape Town. By looking at discourses of heritage and urban design, the book shows how Cape Town positions itself as an emerging global city in the context of a series of global events. The book points at how a heritage focus on the themes of post-colonial and post-apartheid reconciliation, restitution and memory in the city shifts to a focus on creativity, design and the arts. Thereby showing how traumatic remnants of colonialism and apartheid are reframed as “design challenges”. Furthermore, it argues that the idea of a transformed society is projected into a future time and the chaotic present everyday life is left to its own devices. Against this backdrop, the book lays out the opportunities for epistemological reset and decolonial reflection on the city’s deep histories, its embedded injustices and traumas that surfaced.​

Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation

Colonial Heritage, Power, and Contestation
Author: Camila Andrea Malig Jedlicki
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2024-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3031377486

Recent debates about the return of colonially looted heritage have furthered the discussions on decolonisation around the world, and have reignited questions surrounding “what is, and who owns, cultural heritage”. These discourses in the meaning, production and management of heritage – with a growing presence of themes that address “Latinities” – have gained greater visibility in Latin America and the Caribbean, as challenges surrounding cultural heritage arise more prominently worldwide. The attention on this region aims to contextualise the various theoretical, empirical, and critical perspectives in relation to the negotiation of decolonisation. Hence, this book focuses on the analysis of diverse modes of confronting the power underlying colonial heritage that can contribute to pushing boundaries and persuading changes in pre-established definitions of political thought and local identities. To this end, the chapters in this book focus on a wide scope of topics, ranging from the repatriation and restitution of cultural heritage, and diasporic movements to decolonial practices around monuments, museums, and education. In so doing, this volume challenges stereotypes that made Latin America and the Caribbean a space of mere reproducibility of external ideas, and instead provides a space to show current decolonial perspectives and practices developed in the region that will enrich the international debate on the contestation of colonial legacies and decolonisation of cultural heritage.

Reconsidering Colonial Heritage in West African Cities

Reconsidering Colonial Heritage in West African Cities
Author: Krzysztof Górny
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2023-12-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1003824978

The material heritage of the colonial era is built into Africa’s cities, from their urban layouts, to their architecture, monuments and street names. This book discusses the varying responses to colonial heritage in West African cities, with a particular focus on the case studies of Praia in Cape Verde, Dakar in Senegal and Banjul in The Gambia. Europeans tended to focus on cities as centres of administration, and they were often both the starting points for settlement and the locations in which power was formally handed over to new African governments. Colonialism in Praia, Dakar and Banjul was abolished at different times, under different colonial powers (Portuguese, French and British) and amongst vastly different conditions of unrest. Based on extensive original research, this book demonstrates that the contemporary approach to the contentious issue of urban colonial heritage is often determined by metropolis-colony relationship before decolonisation, postcolonial diplomatic relations as well as present-day political decisions. The book uncovers a rich relationship between politics and urban space, and between new and old. Combining insights from political sciences, history, critical geography, heritage studies and urban planning, this book will be of interest to a wide range of researchers.

Colonial Heritage, Memory and Sustainability in Africa

Colonial Heritage, Memory and Sustainability in Africa
Author: Mawere, Munyaradzi
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2015-12-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9956763721

This book serves as a drive and medium for constructive analysis, critical thinking, and informed change in the broad area of cultural heritage studies. In Africa, how to overturn the gory effects and reverse the wholesale obnoxious and unpardonable losses suffered from the excruciating experience of colonialism in a manner that empowers the present and future generations, remains a burning question. Colonial and liberation war heritage have received insignificant attention. The relevance, nature, and politics at play when it comes to the role of memory and colonial heritage in view of nation-building and sustainability on the continent is yet to receive careful practical and theoretical attention and scrutiny from both heritage scholars and governments. Yet, colonial heritage has vast potentials that if harnessed could reverse the gargantuan losses of colonialism and promote sustainable development in Africa. The book critically reflects on the opportunities, constraints, and challenges of colonial heritage across Africa. It draws empirical evidence from its focus on Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, and Mozambique, to advance the thesis that cultural heritage in Africa, and in particular colonial heritage, faces challenges of epic proportions that require urgent attention.

Colonial Heritage and Urban Transformation in the Global South

Colonial Heritage and Urban Transformation in the Global South
Author: Christian Ernsten
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2021-10-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030858065

This book traces and analyses the role of heritage in the urban transformation of the city of Cape Town. By looking at discourses of heritage and urban design, the book shows how Cape Town positions itself as an emerging global city in the context of a series of global events. The book points at how a heritage focus on the themes of post-colonial and post-apartheid reconciliation, restitution and memory in the city shifts to a focus on creativity, design and the arts. Thereby showing how traumatic remnants of colonialism and apartheid are reframed as “design challenges”. Furthermore, it argues that the idea of a transformed society is projected into a future time and the chaotic present everyday life is left to its own devices. Against this backdrop, the book lays out the opportunities for epistemological reset and decolonial reflection on the city’s deep histories, its embedded injustices and traumas that surfaced.​

The Colonial Heritage of French Comics

The Colonial Heritage of French Comics
Author: Mark McKinney
Publisher: Contemporary French and Franco
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781846316425

Although France has changed much in recent decades, colonial-era imagery continues to circulate widely in comics, in part because the colonial archives are easily accessible, and through the republication of colonial-era comics that are viewed as classics. The latter include the Tintin series of comic books, by the Belgian artist Herg , and the "Zig and Puce" series by Alain Saint-Ogan, a Frenchman. In this important new study Mark McKinney situates comics in debates about French colonialism, arguing that cartoonists still use representations of colonial history in their comics as a way of intervening in debates about contemporary France and its current relationships to its former colonies. McKinney argues that comics offer unique opportunities to both reproduce and thereby perpetuate colonial ideologies, images and discourses, as well as to deconstruct and contest them. The ways, and the degree to which, they do one or the other tell us a great deal about the heritage of imperialism and colonialism

The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity

The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity
Author: Professor Brian Graham
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2012-11-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1409487601

Heritage represents the meanings and representations conveyed in the present day upon artifacts, landscapes, mythologies, memories and traditions from the past. It is a key element in the shaping of identities, particularly in the context of increasingly multicultural societies. This Research Companion brings together an international team of authors to discuss the concepts, ideas and practices that inform the entwining of heritage and identity. They have assembled a wide geographical range of examples and interpret them through a number of disciplinary lenses that include geography, history, museum and heritage studies, archaeology, art history, history, anthropology and media studies. This outstanding companion offers scholars and graduate students a thoroughly up-to-date guide to current thinking and a comprehensive reference to this growing field.

Heritage, Memory, and Punishment

Heritage, Memory, and Punishment
Author: Shu-Mei Huang
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2019-09-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 135181074X

Based on a transnational study of decommissioned, postcolonial prisons in Taiwan (Taipei and Chiayi), South Korea (Seoul), and China (Lushun), this book offers a critical reading of prisons as a particular colonial product, the current restoration of which as national heritage is closely related to the evolving conceptualization of punishment. Focusing on the colonial prisons built by the Japanese Empire in the first half of the twentieth century, it illuminates how punishment has been considered a subject of modernization, while the contemporary use of prisons as heritage tends to reduce the process of colonial modernity to oppression and atrocity – thus constituting a heritage of shame and death, which postcolonial societies blame upon the former colonizers. A study of how the remembering of punishment and imprisonment reflects the attempts of postcolonial cities to re-articulate an understanding of the present by correcting the past, Heritage, Memory, and Punishment examines how prisons were designed, built, partially demolished, preserved, and redeveloped across political regimes, demonstrating the ways in which the selective use of prisons as heritage, reframed through nationalism, leaves marks on urban contexts that remain long after the prisons themselves are decommissioned. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, geography, the built environment, and heritage with interests in memory studies and dark tourism.

Changing Heritage

Changing Heritage
Author: Francesco Bandarin
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2024-04-09
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1040016529

Changing Heritage presents the most comprehensive analysis of heritage issues available today. Critically analysing the complexity of the current and forthcoming issues faced by heritage, it presents insightful directions for the future. Drawing on the author’s many years of experience working in senior positions at UNESCO, the book presents discussions of heritage sites all around the world. Today, our cultural and natural legacies face significant threats due to social and economic developments, political pressures, and unresolved historical issues. This book delves into these threats from two distinct perspectives: internal tensions and external pressures. The internal tensions include the disregard for human rights and gender equality; the increasing exploitation of heritage for political purposes; the development of post-colonial perspectives; and the necessity to reassess the established notion of "universal value." External pressures stem from global processes, unsustainable tourism, political conflicts, ethnic clashes, and religious strife that are causing destruction in numerous parts of the world. Examining the dynamics between heritage and these internal tensions and external pressures, Bandarin offers insights into the challenges faced and emphasises the imperative role of civil society in safeguarding the value of heritage for present and future generations. Changing Heritage explores a wide range of issues surrounding the crisis in heritage management on an international level. It will be essential reading for heritage scholars, students, and professionals