Publicação
A decolonial turn in public memory? Hamburg and Lisbon compared
| Resumo: | At least since the 2000s, postcolonial discourses have expanded across cultural, academic and activist forums in European metropolitan centres, even if at different speeds and intensities. This doctoral thesis explores how the cultural politics of remembrance in European cities with extensive colonial-imperial legacies adapt to the postcolonial age. It examines the changing landscapes of public memory in post-imperial Hamburg and Lisbon from a comparative, postcolonial perspective. It is argued that the two European port cities are experiencing a nascent decolonial cultural turn, albeit contingent on powerful post-imperial narratives and neoliberal urban dependencies. Written at the crossroad of memory studies, postcolonial studies and urban studies, the thesis explores Hamburg and Lisbon as nodal points of local, national and global discursive and cultural flows. It draws on a selected range of examples of contested post-imperial places, postcolonial civic initiatives, (counter-)monuments and museum exhibitions, highlighting the multiple affective encounters and performative responses that colonial heritage elicits. Organised into three parts, the thesis focuses on urban space, civil society and museums. The first part compares the cultural landscapes of the waterfront development projects Hamburg HafenCity and Parque das Nações to explore how colonial heritage is reinvented and sanitised. The second part examines two postcolonial memorial initiatives, the Initiative Decolonize Bismarck in Hamburg and Djass in Lisbon, to discuss the cultural politics of networks of affected communities who negotiate with municipalities to reshape public memory landscapes. The last part looks at the cities’ post-imperial museum landscapes. It explores how the MARKK in Hamburg, an ethnology museum, and the Museum of Aljube in Lisbon, a memorial museum of difficult heritage, face the ethical and curatorial challenges of (their own) colonial-imperial legacies. The case studies foreground the predicaments of self-proclaimed global cities in which diasporic communities mobilise long-silenced transcultural memories of the colonial past to assert their public presence. |
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| Autores principais: | Prinzleve, Jonas |
| Ano: | 2023 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | tese de doutoramento |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa |
| Resumo: | At least since the 2000s, postcolonial discourses have expanded across cultural, academic and activist forums in European metropolitan centres, even if at different speeds and intensities. This doctoral thesis explores how the cultural politics of remembrance in European cities with extensive colonial-imperial legacies adapt to the postcolonial age. It examines the changing landscapes of public memory in post-imperial Hamburg and Lisbon from a comparative, postcolonial perspective. It is argued that the two European port cities are experiencing a nascent decolonial cultural turn, albeit contingent on powerful post-imperial narratives and neoliberal urban dependencies. Written at the crossroad of memory studies, postcolonial studies and urban studies, the thesis explores Hamburg and Lisbon as nodal points of local, national and global discursive and cultural flows. It draws on a selected range of examples of contested post-imperial places, postcolonial civic initiatives, (counter-)monuments and museum exhibitions, highlighting the multiple affective encounters and performative responses that colonial heritage elicits. Organised into three parts, the thesis focuses on urban space, civil society and museums. The first part compares the cultural landscapes of the waterfront development projects Hamburg HafenCity and Parque das Nações to explore how colonial heritage is reinvented and sanitised. The second part examines two postcolonial memorial initiatives, the Initiative Decolonize Bismarck in Hamburg and Djass in Lisbon, to discuss the cultural politics of networks of affected communities who negotiate with municipalities to reshape public memory landscapes. The last part looks at the cities’ post-imperial museum landscapes. It explores how the MARKK in Hamburg, an ethnology museum, and the Museum of Aljube in Lisbon, a memorial museum of difficult heritage, face the ethical and curatorial challenges of (their own) colonial-imperial legacies. The case studies foreground the predicaments of self-proclaimed global cities in which diasporic communities mobilise long-silenced transcultural memories of the colonial past to assert their public presence. |
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