Grappling with Monuments of Oppression: Moving from Analysis to Activism(Restorative Justice in Heritage Studies and Archaeology)

Grappling with Monuments of Oppression provides a timely analysis of the diverse approaches being used around the world to confront colonial and imperial monuments and to promote social equity. Presenting 12 interdisciplinary, international case studies, this volume explores the ways in which the materiality of social domination can be combated. With contributions from activists, scholars, artists, and policymakers, the book envisions the theme of restorative justice in heritage and archaeology as encompassing initiatives for the reconciliation of past societal transgressions using processes that are multivocal, dialogic, historically informed, community-based, negotiated, and transformative. Arguing that monuments to historical figures who engaged in oppressive regimes provide rich opportunities for dialogue and negotiation, chapters within the book demonstrate that, by confronting these monuments, citizens can envision new ways to address the context and significance of the figures they memorialize and the many people who were targets of their oppression. Contributors to the book also provide a toolkit of methods and strategies for addressing the continuing structures of social domination. Grappling with Monuments of Oppression will be essential reading for academics and students working in heritage studies, archaeology, anthropology, material culture studies, landscape analysis, and museum studies. It will also be of great interest to practitioners and activists around the world.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures; List of Contributors; Acknowledgements; Foreword; 1. Introduction: Remaking Monuments and Memories; 2. Addressing Community Trauma through the Framework of Controversial Monuments and Monuments of Oppression; 3. Un-ringing the Bell: How to Silence Oppressive Monuments; 4. Landscapes of Slavery and Colonialism: Creating, Embracing, and Erasing the Past in The Gambia and Senegal; 5. Cherbourg Beyond the Seas: An Invisible Monument and the Colonial Past in a Former French Imperial Port City; 6. Place of Punishment or Monument? Colonial Pillories and the Memory of Slavery in Brazil; 7. Shipwrecks, the Middle Passage and Jim Crow: The Signatures of Systemic Racism and Injustice at Two Maritime Archaeological Sites; 8. Confronting the Lost Cause Memorialization in South Carolina; 9. Notice is Hereby Given: The Commemorative to Enslaved Peoples of Southern Maryland; 10. A Re-Vision of Confederate Monuments: The Art and Activism of John Sims; 11. Commemorating an American Genocide: Catherine’s Town and the 1779 Sullivan Expedition against the Haudenosaunee; 12. Decolonizing Monument Making in Newark, New Jersey: The Harriet Tubman Memorial; Index.

About the Author :
Christopher C. Fennell is Professor of Anthropology and Law, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, and an annual Visiting Professor of Law, University of Chicago, USA.