Contested Histories in Public Space

"Contested Histories in Public Space" brings multiple perspectives to bear on historical narratives presented to the public in museums, monuments, texts, and festivals around the world, from Paris to Kathmandu, from the Mexican state of Oaxaca to the waterfront of Wellington, New Zealand. Paying particular attention to how race and empire are implicated in the creation and display of national narratives, historians, anthropologists, and other scholars delve into representations of contested histories in sites including a British Library exhibition on the East India Company, a Rio de Janeiro shantytown known as 'the cradle of samba,' the Ellis Island immigration museum, and high-school history textbooks in Ecuador. Several contributors examine how the experiences of indigenous groups and the imperial past are incorporated into public histories in British Commonwealth nations: in Te Papa, New Zealand's national museum; in the First Peoples Hall at the Canadian Museum of Civilization; and, more broadly, in late-twentieth-century Australian culture. Still others focus on the role of governments in mediating contested racialized histories. One such contributor discusses the post-apartheid fate of South Africa's Voortrekker Monument, which was originally designed to celebrate an Afrikaner defeat of Zulu resistance. Among several essays describing how national narratives have been challenged by non-government actors are pieces on a dispute over how to represent Nepali history and identity, on representations of Afrocuban religion in contemporary Cuba, and on the installation of a statue of Louis Delgres, a leader of Guadeloupean resistance to French colonialism, in the Pantheon, the Paris museum honoring France's leaders. The contributors include: Paul Amar, Paul Ashton, O. Hugo Benavides, Laurent Dubois, Richard Flores, Durba Ghosh, Albert Grundlingh, Paula Hamilton, Lisa Maya Knauer, Charlotte Macdonald, Mark Salber Phillips, Ruth B. Phillips, Deborah Poole, Anne M. Rademacher, and Daniel J. Walkowitz.