De-Commemoration

Sarah Gensburger is Professor of sociology and political science at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and Sciences Po-Paris and President of the international Memory Studies Association since 2021. She is the author of Beyond Memory: Can We Really Learn from the Past? (with Sandrine Lefranc, Palgrave, 2020), and Memory on my Doorstep: Chronicles of the Bataclan Neighborhood, Paris, 2015-2016 (Leuven University Press, 2019) as well as co-editor of Administrations of Memory (with Sara Dybris McQuaid(Springer, 2022).

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments



Introduction: Making Sense of De-Commemoration

Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg



Part I: De-Commemoration after Regime Change



Chapter 1. Baptizing and Unbaptizing in Algeria: From French Colonization to National Independence

Amar Mohand-Amer



Chapter 2. Street Renaming in Postsocialist Romania: A Quantitative Analysis of Toponymic Change

Mihai Stelian Rusu



Chapter 3. “The First Bolshevik Leaves Riga”: The De-Commemoration of Vladimir I. Lenin in Riga, Latvia (1987–1991)

Dmitrijs Andrejevs



Chapter 4. “In Memory of the Fallen…” But for How Long? The De-Commemoration of German War Memorials in Poland after 1945

Karolina �wiek-Rogalska



Chapter 5. Naming to Erase, Renaming to Restore: (Re)Indigenizing the Landscape

Kerri J. Malloy



Chapter 6. Removing Rhodes from His Pedestal: De-Commemoration in Postcolonial South Africa

Gary Baines



Chapter 7. Contrasting Fates of Lenin Statues in Ukraine and Russia

Dominique Colas



Chapter 8. Beyond the Monument: Unmaking the Valley of the Fallen in Contemporary Spain

Francisco Ferrándiz



Part II: De-Commemoration and Societal Transformation



Chapter 9. Renaming and the Relationship between Colonized and Colonizer: The Role of Commemoration within Dual Place Names in New Zealand

Taylor Annabell



Chapter 10. De-Canonization of the Soviet Past: Abject, Kitsch, and Memory

Yuliya Yurchuk



Chapter 11. Diversifying Public Commemorations in Cape Town and Copenhagen

Vibe Nielsen



Chapter 12. De-Commemoration as Healing and Conflict: Canada and Its Colonial Past and Present

Kate Korycki



Chapter 13. Killing Pedro de Valdivia Again: De-Commemoration of the Past and De-Neoliberalization of the Present during the 2019–2020 Chilean Revolt

Manuela Badilla and Carolina Aguilera



Chapter 14. De-Commemorating Sound: Controversies about the Reestablishment of the National Anthem in South Korea and Beyond

Bae Myo-Jung



Chapter 15. Do Commemorations Have an “Expiration Date”? A Case Study from Belgium

Nicolas Moll



Part III: De-Commemoration to Propel Change



Chapter 16. De-Commemorating Australian Settler Colonialism

Sarah Maddison



Chapter 17. The Present Is All That Matters: De-Commemoration Practices in Israel

Tracy Adams and Yinon Guttel-Klein



Chapter 18. De-Commemorations and the Unsettled Past in Contemporary Brazil

Ricardo Santhiago



Chapter 19. Decolonizing Colonial Monuments: Counter-Memory Activism in Madrid and Barcelona

Fabiola Arellano Cruz



Chapter 20. Transnational Memory Struggles: Guerrilla Remembrances in Colombia and Venezuela in the 2000s

Jimena Perry



Chapter 21. “Next Stop Anton-Wilhelm-Amo Strasse”: Place Names, De-Commemoration, and Memory Activism in Berlin

Duane Jethro and Samuel Merrill



Chapter 22. From Decapitation to Destruction: Making Sense of Toppling Statues in Contemporary Martinique

Audrey Célestine, Valérie-Ann Edmond-Mariette, and Zaka Toto



Chapter 23. De-Commemoration in Great Britain

Stephen Small



Chapter 24. The Role of Nonprofits in De-Commemoration: The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Whose Heritage? Report

Seth Levi and Kimberly Probulus



Part IV: De-Commemoration as Smoke Screen



Chapter 25. De-Commemoration without Decolonization? The Peculiar Case of the Philippines

Lila Ramos Shahani



Chapter 26. Twice Removed: The Mystery of Manila’s Missing Comfort Woman Monument

Catherine Lianza Aquino and Jocelyn S. Martin



Chapter 27. Counter-Memory and State De-Commemoration: The Khavaran Mass Grave in Iran

Chowra Makaremi



Chapter 28. The Toppling of the Equestrian Statue and the Future of Colonial-Era Memorials in Namibia

Vilho Amukwaya Shigwedha



Chapter 29. An Unmarked Rebellion: The Politics of Forgetting Denmark Vesey

Vanessa Lynn Lovelace and Jamie Huff



Chapter 30. Exploring the Scope of De-Commemoration: Touring Trafalgar Square in London and Beyond

Stuart Burch



Part V: De-Commemoration to Challenge Memory



Chapter 31. From De-Commemoration of Names to Reparative Namescapes: Geographical Case Studies in the United States

Jordan P. Brasher and Derek Alderman



Chapter 32. De-Commemoration under the Law: The Removal of Statues in France and the United States

Thomas Hochmann



Chapter 33. Human Rights and Toppled Statues: Can the European Convention on Human Rights Provide Solutions to De-Commemoration Disputes?

Tom Lewis



Chapter 34. Re-Commemoration: What Other Stories Can We Tell? Observing Ordinary People Engaging with Monuments in Public Space

Alison Atkinson-Phillips



Chapter 35. Who Cares about Old Statues and Street Names? Resisting Change and the Protracted Decommunization of Public Space in Poland

Ewa Ochman



Chapter 36. Keeping the Past from Freezing: Augmented Reality and Memories in the Public Space

Mykola Makhortykh and Anna Menyhért



Chapter 37. De-Commemorating White Supremacy through the Act of Voting

Lorena Chambers



Index