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.
Author(s): Britta Timm Knudsen, John Oldfield, Elizabeth Buettner, Elvan Zabunyan
Series: Critical Heritages of Europe
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 470
City: London
Cover
Frontispiece
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
Political climates in today’s world
Heritage discourses
The decolonial necessity and option
Decolonial methodologies
Decolonial re-emergent futures
Structure of the book
Notes
References
Part I: Haunted worlds: ghosts of the colonial past
Chapter 1: Europe and its entangled colonial pasts: Europeanizing the ‘imperial turn’ 1
Paving the way: approaching Western and Southern Europe’s overseas histories
Imperializing Nordic Europe
Central and Eastern Europe’s imperial turns
From decolonization to Europe’s integration and postcolonial condition
Note
References
Chapter 2: 1917, Brexit and imperial nostalgia: A longing for the future 1
Brexit, Britishness and nostalgia
Pastoral nostalgia and Little England
A nostalgia for the modern
Concluding remarks
Note
References
Chapter 3: Spectres of Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town 1
After the #Fall
The temple on the hill
A last little piece of Rhodesia
Spectres of Rhodes
Note
References
Chapter 4: Decolonizing the narrative of Portuguese empire 1 : Life stories of African presence, heritage and memory
Silences and invisibilities in the public narrative of Portuguese empire
Building memory counter-narratives
Rethinking African history and places
Decolonizing sight
Educating interculturally through museums
Visibilizing the African presence through graffiti
The emerging voices and sight of entangled counter-narratives
Notes
References
Chapter 5: Decolonizing Warsaw: The multiple afterlives of ‘Ali’ 1
A newcomer who comes back
Ali depicted and displayed
Ali at the museum
Ali in the city
Conclusions: what is Ali used for?
Note
References
Part II: Contemporary heritage practices: new agents, urban space events and intercultural encounters
(i): Museums and curatorship
Chapter 6: Curating colonial heritage in Amsterdam, Warsaw and Shanghai’s museums: No single road to decolonization 1
Amsterdam: colonizer in the past, decolonizer in the present?
Second-hand (de)colonialism in Warsaw
The colonial matrix of power: the case of Shanghai
Comparing decolonization
Notes
References
Chapter 7: The influence of Western colonial culture on Shanghai: A case study of the ‘Modern Shanghai’ exhibition at the Shanghai History Museum 1
‘The Rise of Shanghai City’
Urbanization
Business
Municipal administration
Modern education and culture
‘A Bustling New Metropolis’
The Far East’s largest industrial centre
The Far East’s largest commercial and trading centre
The Far East’s financial centre
Municipal administration
Shanghai as a communication centre of Chinese and Western culture in modern China
Fusing Chinese and Western styles to forge a modern new urban lifestyle
Problems and challenges
Conclusion
Note
Bibliography
Chapter 8: Decolonizing contemporary art exhibitions: Okwui Enwezor (1963–2019), the turning point of curatorship
The exhibition as a medium to deconstruct the dominant history
The short century
Documenta11
Terrible nearness of distant places
Notes
References
(ii): Echoes of colonial heritage, visual culture and site-specific art
Chapter 9: Sensitive memories at a World Heritage Site: Silencing and resistance at the Valongo Wharf 1
Placing the cemetery and the Wharf in World Heritage debates
Pretos Novos Cemetery: between silencing and resistance
Valongo Wharf: blackness, identities, belonging
Heritage and memories on the move
Notes
References
Chapter 10: Traces of contempt and traces of self-esteem: Deconstructing our toxic colonial legacy
Go To Ben-Bella
Said Mahdjoub
The executive
Habiba Mahdjoub
Rage
Djamel Mahdjoub
Vomiting the face of ‘you-are-not-like-the-others’
Small shift of the bottle on the small yellow notebook
Notes
References
Chapter 11: Reframing the colonial in postcolonial Lisbon: Placemaking and the aestheticization of interculturality 1
Cultural events and placemaking
Festivals: instrumentalization of culture and massification of cultural practices
Reframing the colonial in postcolonial Lisbon
Conclusions
Notes
References
Chapter 12: Aesthetics and colonial heritage: An interview with artists based in Marseille 1
Notes
Chapter 13: Enslaved bodies, entangled sites and the memory of slavery in Cape Town: The meeting of the dead and the living
Cape Town: a city of contrasts
A meeting of the dead and living as a way to move on
Container : witnessed the invisibilized—a response to the São José shipwreck
Virtual reality, immersion, and a demand for change in society
Conclusion
References
Part III: Imagining decolonial futures
Chapter 14: Decolonial countervisuality 1
White gazes and visceral-affective responses
Visuality and countervisuality
Faire-part as countervisual documentary
A participatory method
Multiperspectival analysis of Faire-part Who constitutes the focus group?
Common statement about Faire-part
Favourite scenes
Differences and positionality
What does countervisuality look like in Faire-part ?
Final remarks
Notes
References
Chapter 15: New Diplomacy and decolonial heritage practices 1
Types of knowledge: indigenous, local, community
Mid-space actors
Arnhem Land expedition: a successful case of restitution
A museum for Danish colonial history
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 16: Decolonial voices, colonialism and the limits of European liberalism: The European question revisited 1
The Jewish question
The colonial question and the colonized race
Post-war Europe: all questions solved?
The migrant crisis: a choc en retour ?
Back to the Muslim question
We are here
Transnationality and interculturality
Note
References
Index
