A reminder that comments are an important part of preparing for seminar. Please do your preparation for class by carefully and thoughtfully engaging with the reading. When everyone does the readings, it contributes greatly classroom dynamics and discussion, and respects each other’s time and energy.
This week, you are to map sites of memory or erasure on campus (week 8), do the readings, and prepare for the MemoLab (see outline for week 10). The MemoLab is an opportunity to reflect on what you have learned to date in terms of participatory witnessing (week 2), the ethics of testimony and silence (week 5), the mnemonic role of objects, photographs and symbols (week 1-3), curatorial decisions (who should look, at what, why, for what purpose (week 4), queering memory (week 9) and the political and moral economies of victimhood (week 7).
This week’s readings made me reflect on the narratives and histories of the educational institutions I’ve attended. Alderman and Dwyer’s article on memorials as text, arenas, and performances highlighted the ever-changing meaning, silences, and discussions invoked by memorials and sites of memory. It emphasized the importance of where memorials and monuments are located as critical to shaping “what (and who) is ultimately remembered and forgotten” (57).
Flint’s article on the racialized retellings of college campuses encouraged me to think about the statues and sights of memory on my own college campus. I went to a liberal arts school called Bates College in the city of Lewiston, Maine. Until today, it had been my understanding that Bates was founded by a slave abolitionist in the mid-nineteenth century. This is something that was retold during campus tours and was frequently brought up to validate Bates’ non-discriminatory and inclusive mission. Through a little bit of research, I’ve come to learn that despite being founded by abolitionist Oren Cheney, Bates was also funded and accumulated wealth from slave cotton. This is not something that was ever discussed or communicated by the school in its retelling of history. Bates College is also located within the Penobscot Indian Nation – this was never something that was acknowledged, discussed, or memorialized as being part of its history.
I was trying to remember if there were statues that memorialized particular people, and the only statue that I can remember is one of a bobcat, the sports mascot. However, I do recall there being plaques by the open gates of the school (it’s not a closed campus) and all the buildings were named after their benefactors, who were and continue to be mainly white, wealthy donors.
Shepherd’s article After the #fall also provided me with a greater understanding of the University of Cape Town’s history. I attended the University of Cape Town for a semester in the fall of 2017, just a year after the #RhodesMustFall event, and I’m ashamed to admit I knew very little about the movement. During my semester there, the #FeesMustFall student movement was very active and classes were moved online for the second half of the semester due to dissent and protests on campus. When I was there, I noticed very stark differences between the architecture of the University and the town of Rondebosch, which is located at the foot of the mountain and lower end of campus. I visited the Rhodes Memorial and “admired” the views of Cape Town from the lookout point, not considering the statues in the memorial itself or the imperialistic gaze of the city from the “temple-on-a-hill.” This article reaffirmed how important it is to be critical and curious about the spaces I am a guest in, to challenge the dominant narratives, and to question what histories continue to be silenced, and for what reason.
Question: Shepherd writes about the #Fall of the Rhodes Statue as creating a new intellectual and political space that led to further protests including the #Shackville and #FeesMustFall protests. Are sites of memory therefore necessary (or helpful?) for sparking resistance and opportunities for further dissent?
Barbosa’s piece on the protest in León, Nicaragua, made me reflect on historical myths and how their significance lies in their political and social impact rather than their ‘factual accuracy.’ Which in a way is how we’ve learned memory can be interpreted. In Babosa’s piece we see how memory of the massacre in Nicaragua remains divided and fragmented, shaped by opposing narratives from the Somocista regime, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and local communities/students, each influenced by their ‘political interests.’ While some view the protest as manipulated by the FSNL, others saw it as a crucial moment of resistance against an authoritarian government. What stands out is the idea of myth as a form of non-linear collective memory. Myths are often understood outside of academic contexts as a form of storytelling that isn’t necessarily grounded in “factual truth.” Yet, as we’ve learned in this class, memories and historical truths can be inherently non-linear. This does not mean that they lack accuracy, but rather that memory is shaped by diverse perspectives, affect, and different forms of testimonies.
On a side note, I was also particularly drawn to the gendered dynamics of the students’ mobilization and how gender norms were reinforced through representation and hegemonic gender performance. The gendered dimension of the July 23, 1959, protest in Nicaragua is particularly evident in how students interacted with the National Guard (GN) soldiers. The students who referred to the soldiers with derogatory terms, insulting their masculinity, show how the confrontation was not just political but also a contest over masculine identity and power, rooted in a broader patriarchal, cultural and gendered regime. Meanwhile, women had more of a passive role, which was also hindered by male power.
Speaking of social mobilization in Nicaragua, D. H. Alderman’s quote is relevant as it resonates with how “the body itself can be viewed as a place for commemoration, as well as political expression.” In this case, the body in itself is used as a way to preserve and resist the way ‘the past’ or a ‘historical event’ is remembered. D. H. Alderman’s piece provides an example of Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo and how their bodily performances, such as marching and wearing white scarves, have been used to commemorate their lost children and relatives while continuing to resist injustice from the Argentine government. More recently, Las Madres intersect with contemporary feminist movements like the Green Wave (La Marea Verde), where the color green has become a symbol for reproductive justice in Latin America. Hence, continuous mobilizations serve to build collective memory about the past and present.
While monuments carry heavy historical baggage tied to racism and white supremacy, I was reminded of how the university I attended during my undergrad used representation to project diversity, despite being predominantly white and not genuinely committed to fighting structural racism. After the killing of George Floyd by the police, many Black students felt marginalized by the university, which led to over 525 members of the university community signing a letter calling on the university president to develop a comprehensive plan to address racism. Despite efforts to increase diversity, many students felt the president had not sufficiently addressed the oppression existing within the institution, representing a case of merely performative activism.
As Jordan P. Basher states: “Important to the goal of African Americans and other marginalized groups creating an oppositional politics of belonging is not simply removing symbols to white supremacy but also resolving the invisibility of peo-ple of color within the university’s social memory, suggesting that decommemoration alone is not enough but countercommemoration is also required.”
How does countercommemoration challenge dominant historical narratives, and what examples exist of successful countercommemorative practices in Canada or elsewhere?
This week’s readings demonstrate that the role of monuments in shaping memory and belonging on university campuses is complex. I will reflect on the readings using my encounter with the Reconciliation Pole on campus. On my very first day as a graduate student on campus, I walked past the 55-foot red cedar pole in the Main Mall. Today, having lived in this new city for almost two years, and having learnt of Canada’s racist history, I look at this 55-foot pole very differently.
As Young’s (1992) article portrays it, I perceive the Reconciliation Pole as a ‘counter-monument’. Young introduced ‘counter-monument’ through Radermacher’s memorial at Neukolln which is an ever-changing exhibit illuminating the stories of forced labor camps in the Holocaust. Unlike conventional memorials which affirm state narratives, counter-monuments aim to disrupt this function by ensuring continuous engagement with history. For me, the Reconciliation Pole’s placement at UBC, embodies a similar decolonial form of memory requiring continuous engagement and recognition. It defies being a static structure and stands tall at UBC as a reminder of the dialogue and action needed for reconciliation.
Shepherd’s (2020) analysis of the Rhodes Must Fall movement highlights how monuments serve as sites of power, with the potential to reinforce or undo historical injustices on campus. The fall of the Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town symbolized the rejection of institutionalized racism and paved the pathway for advocacy and protests. Shepherd (2020) mentions that the fall of the Rhodes statue had ‘a seismic effect on university life and culture in South Africa’. This embodies the critical role the method of remembrance/memory plays in fighting colonial injustices on campus. In contrast to the Rhodes statue, the Reconciliation Pole does not attempt to erase colonial history but rather to illuminate it. UBC rests on the traditional, ancestral, unceded AND STOLEN territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) First Nation. For me, today, the Reconciliation Pole signifies the upper hand and resilience of the Indigenous community against colonial attempts to erase their community.
Flint (2021) extends the significance of monuments on campus further by discussing how campus monuments are not neutral. She argues that they shape how we remember, how we belong, and how universities choose to engage with their colonial pasts. Flint (2021) mentions that universities reaffirm white supremacist and colonial logics by thinking in a linear temporal narrative of ‘in the past’. For instance, policymakers in Canada are often keen to perceive residential schools as a tragedy of the past. In doing so, they ignore how intergenerational trauma and Indigenous-specific racism continues to harm these communities even today. For me, the Reconciliation Pole resists this narrative by ensuring that remembrance is a collective and ongoing process.
Do you think the Reconciliation Pole serves as a meaningful counter-monument, or does it risk becoming an institutional symbol of performative reconciliation?
Through the assigned readings this week, I have realized the multilayered nature of the significance of monuments, rather than just memorializing the history of what happened in the past. As Guite (2011) suggests, through monuments the state can choose what should be held as the dominant public memory. From my personal experience, I am impressed by this finding. For when I look back at mainstream monuments in China, such as the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Beijing and the monument at the Nanjing Massacre Victims’ Memorial, both of which portray China’s history during world war. The monument in Nanjing is carved in black with 300,000, symbolizing not only the 300,000 Chinese citizens who were brutally murdered, but it also symbolizes the shared historical memory. Yet there is much history behind this tragedy that has been downplayed. Flint (2021) analyzes the meaning of monuments from a spatial perspective as dynamic. Despite being under the same space, there are different historical meanings. The Memorial to the Victims of Nanjing primarily emphasizes the evidence of Japanese guilt, but less often discusses the poor decision-making of the Chinese national government’s military arrangements during this period.
These articles also reminded me of my experience on last week’s mapping tour, and in particular sparked my thoughts on which monuments should be memorialized. As Alderman suggests, one of the forms a monument can have is text. One monument that stands out to me is “the cairn” near the engineering department in UBC.Because this monument doesn’t have any text, except for a letter E symbolizing engineering. But the spatial location in which it sits, as well as the numbers that have been inscribed on its surface, have triggered me to think about the meaning of this monument. For example, whose history does this monument carry, and whose history might it be ignoring? These are meanings that exist beyond words, but they will all exist because of this monument.
How to decide what kind of monument should be in a location? And whether to remove a monument that already exists when it is controversial?
Public memorials and monuments shape how societies remember historical violence. The texts from this week each explore how memorialization is contested, reflecting political struggles over whose histories are acknowledged and how they are framed. Across these texts, the ethics of testimony, participatory witnessing, and the political economies of victimhood emerge as central tensions.
Li critiques the nationalist instrumentalization of “comfort women” memorials, arguing that while they acknowledge gendered wartime violence, they also reinforce the idea of the “perfect victim” and exclude survivors whose experiences do not conform to state-sanctioned narratives. In contrast, Young’s counter-monuments reject the notion of fixed memory altogether, challenging passive remembrance and forcing the public into an ongoing relationship with history. The Hamburg Monument Against Fascism, which disappeared as people signed their names on it, refused the closure of traditional monuments, placing responsibility for memory on the public.
Objects and symbols are crucial in shaping memory, but their meanings are not neutral. The Statue of Peace emphasizes innocence, reinforcing problematic binaries of victimhood, while Young’s examples, like the empty underground library in Berlin, use absence to provoke reflection. These debates also raise questions about the ethics of curatorial decisions—who should look at what, and why? Young and Ndlovu-Gatsheni expose how memorials can reinforce power structures rather than challenge them while also exploring ways to disrupt dominant narratives.
I wonder, how do memorials shape the political economies of victimhood, and what are the risks of nationalist appropriation in commemoration?
The readings this week were really helpful for me in thinking a bit deeper about my experience with ‘mapping the campus’ and generally reflecting on my own impressions of and relationships with sites of memory in the spaces that I frequent. I particularly appreciated the readings focused on University settings – they articulated thoughts that I have had as a student about my own sense of belonging on campus and how I observe my universities dealing with complicated and contentious histories. I am appreciating this focus on sites of memory to analyze how institutions can reproduce oppression through their own politics of memory. I particularly liked how Brasher et al. argued that universities are ‘wounded’ places due to their histories of white supremacy and structural violence. Brasher et al. articulated this analogy that universities tend to leave their wounds open and unhealed, leaving them to continue to inflict psychosocial harm, especially upon racialized students. I resonated with what Brasher et al. called a “colorblind approach” (p. 297) taken by universities to address difficult histories. In the context of arguments by Alderman & Dwyer about how sites of memory are inherently political, as they legitimate some versions of history, while silencing others, it is clear that there is no way for universities to take a truly “colorblind approach” to sites of memory. I think that understanding and acknowledging this may be a first step towards healing the institution’s ‘wounds’. I appreciated Brasher et al.’ s suggestion that countercommemoration is a necessary step forward. This connected nicely to the point made in the Flint reading about how speaking the names of men who were enslaved on the University of Alabama campus was a form of “corporeal, embodied remembering” (p. 571) that could serve as a form of resistance against systematic erasure.
These thoughts connect to several of my reflections for previous weeks in this class about how remembering can be a form of resistance. Now, these readings have made this reflection feel a bit more personal. I am reflecting on whether and how I have observed examples of countercommemoration on my own university campuses. I am also wondering what countercommemoration might even look like at UBC, particularly for the commemoration of the lasting impacts of colonialism in the Musqueam lands that the UBC campus is situated on. I am looking forward to sharing and discussing these thoughts further in our MemoLab this week.
Q: What might countercommemoration look like at UBC? Who should be involved in countercommemoration efforts and who should this work be for?
The readings this week explore how monuments, protests, and historical narratives serve as battlegrounds for contesting power and confronting injustice.
Young’s piece on counter-monuments is thought-provoking, particularly in its critique of traditional national monuments that reinforce national righteousness. The term ‘national righteousness’ stands out to me as it reveals how deeply embedded narratives of virtue and legitimacy can prevent states from fully addressing historical injustices, especially those with histories of violence and oppression. The reading suggests that addressing past injustices requires states to give up these narratives. For Germany, this means acknowledging its role as the perpetrator, a task that traditional monuments are not suited for. Counter-monuments disrupt these conventional modes of remembering, fostering a more honest and critical engagement with the past. By making memory an ongoing, unsettled process rather than a fixed symbol, they push societies toward deeper recognition of historical injustices. The harder a nation clings to its righteousness, the harder it becomes to achieve real accountability and reconciliation.
Barbosa’s article on student protest and state violence in Nicaragua reminds me of Myanmar’s pro-democracy protests in 1988 and 2021, despite differences in the scale of violence and political context. In both cases, students played a central role as catalysts for resistance while facing brutal state repression. They asserted moral legitimacy against oppressive regimes, using symbols and narratives to challenge state power. Just as the Sandinistas incorporated July 23 into their revolutionary mythology, Myanmar’s pro-democracy movements commemorate 8888 and the Spring Revolution as part of a long struggle. Meanwhile, regimes manipulate these events to justify repression, as seen in the Somozas’ portrayal of Leon’s protest as communist subversion and the Myanmar junta’s distortion of uprisings. This ongoing battle over memory highlights that political change is fought not only in the streets but also in how history is remembered or erased.
Brasher’s work highlights ongoing debates at US universities regarding the commemoration of historical figures associated with white supremacy through the naming of campus buildings and other places. I found the idea of universities as ‘wounded places’ interesting. This challenges the common perception of universities as neutral spaces of knowledge production and instead positions them as active participants in racial inequality. The author underscores how campus spaces subtly reinforce exclusion by honoring figures tied to white supremacy, suggesting that the struggle over place naming goes beyond symbolism, raising questions of belonging and institutional responsibility.
Flint examines how campus monuments, such as the Confederate boulder and the clocktower, serve as memory objects that perpetuate systems of colonization and white supremacy in higher education. The presence of Confederate boulder can evoke feelings of exclusion and alienation for Black students despite symbolizing white supremacy, revealing how deeply these legacies are embedded in campus spaces. The clocktower, intended to honor Black students’ desegregation efforts, offers a sense of pride for some while reminding others of ongoing racial struggles. The idea of ‘critical spatial remembering’ urges us to view monuments not just as historical symbols but as active forces shaping present identities, challenging erased histories. Recognizing what’s missing can help us challenge existing narratives and promote a more inclusive understanding of history and belonging on campus.
Question:
How can recognizing historical injustices through monuments help create a more inclusive sense of identity and belonging on campuses?
When I was in elementary school, I lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where there were sites of memory all over. There was Citadel Hill, a fort looking over the harbour that had been turned into a paid-for historic tourist site to sled on, walk through for Halloween, or learn about the city’s social history. When I drove to and from the airport, I crossed the John A. MacDonald Bridge without realizing the atrocities he contributed to. Instead, I revered him in school with my classmates while learning about the calm lives of the educated Mi’kmaq. During my undergraduate years in Kingston, Ontario, a statue of MacDonald became a memory site that was protested by students and Indigenous activists calling for its removal. Numerous veterans also honoured him as Canada’s first Prime Minister.
These instances highlight how deeply rooted colonial commemorations are in our public spaces, making figures that represent oppression a part of our everyday lives. We often find that the names of bridges, universities, and public institutions pay tribute to historical figures who played significant roles in the colonization of Turtle Island and the push for imperial agendas. A statue of John A. Macdonald doesn’t only acknowledge a historical figure; it celebrates his legacy despite the violence he imposed on Indigenous communities. Alderman and Dwyer (2009) argue that memorials and monuments are more than passive markers of history; they’re ideological tools that reinforce dominant narratives. The issue with linking presence to remembrance is that placing these figures in honorable positions doesn’t foster critical engagement; it demands reverence.
The selective remembrance of colonial figures is not accidental; it is a deliberate act that reinforces power structures (Guite, 2011). By keeping these figures in places of honor, we obscure the histories of those who resisted, those who suffered, and those whose stories were never told. True justice in memory work requires dismantling these hierarchies, creating space for silenced histories, and recognizing that remembrance is not about statues—it is about whose lives and legacies we choose to elevate. When people argue that taking down these monuments erases history, they overlook the fact that history has been selectively rewritten to glorify these figures in the first place.
Monuments like the statue of Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town shape public space and dictate who feels welcome within it (Shepherd, 2020). I realize it’s just as important to remember that removing these statues is not just about taking something down; it’s about making room for different ways of knowing and remembering. Shepherd (2020) speaks to how this creates new intellectual and political space, allowing universities to confront their pasts rather than being defined by them. Sites of memory are grounds for justice. They force us to confront uncomfortable truths about those we choose to commemorate and why. Acknowledging the past means more than preserving monuments; it means building spaces where truth and justice can coexist.
Question: What does it look like to build monuments and memorials that center the experiences of those who were oppressed rather than those who perpetrated harm?
There have been many times in this class that the readings have led me to falling down a rabbit hole because of a memory they reminded me of or because of something I once saw. This week was no different. Memorials can have that effect, and I think the vast variety of the focus of readings show how different memorials have been thought about depending on the sociopolitical, geographical, and present contexts.
Young’s chapter on memorials as counter-movement in Germany inevitably reminded me of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe, which is located in Berlin. Funnily enough, while falling down the aforementioned rabbit hole, I encountered a more recent article by Young detailing his experiences as one of the consultive experts when the design for the memorial was being decided. He explains the very complex, debated and controversial process it was, detailing how at one point there were more than 500 proposals. He explains that at one point he was more than satisfied with the debate surrounding which design to choose and why it was meant to be chosen, he told the group of artists “if you count the sheer number of design-hours that 528 teams of artists and architects have already devoted to the memorial, it’s clear that your process has already generated more individual memory-work than a finished monument will inspire in its first ten years”. In the end, the chosen design was a more than two thousand concrete slabs, with different heights, arranged in a grid pattern. I visited the memorial and it still makes me reflect whenever something reminds me of it. A couple of years ago during undergrad, I took a class on the history of the Holocaust and at one point the professor asked us to reflect on the memorials of the Holocaust in Germany. Did they serve their purpose? If so, what is their purpose? And I mentioned how the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe both serves its purpose and at the same it does not. The main reason why not, for me, was closely linked to how some girls I knew from my elementary school when they graduated high school, and went on their Eurotrip and visited the memorial, sat on top of the slabs and were taking photos smiling and joking around. Did they not know what that memorial was for? Or if they did know, did they just not care?
Alderman, Brasher, & Dwyer, as well as Brasher, Alderman & Inwood, talk about memorials as wounds, the second set of authors specifically on university campuses and the commemorative place naming. Names carry history and memories, and university campuses are political spaces, no matter how much university administrations want to ignore it. We saw a very recent example of commemorative naming just half a year ago with Hind’s Hall at Columbia University to protest the genocide in Gaza. I think my main reflections from these two articles is why are university administrations so threatened by changing the names of buildings and halls when one of their excuses has been that “it’s just a name”? Can there ever be such a thing as a “generic name” (Brasher et al., p. 297) that universities can choose from? After all, if they choose a generic name is because they are scared of the politics behind a name which is itself a political act.
Questions:
Do memorials serve their purpose?
How much does a person need to know about a memorial for the memorial to serve its purpose?
This week was such a winner for me because I love places and things. I tried to find a way to not make that sound like I am addicted to shopping and vacations and this is what I came up with: I am a fan of the intangible becoming tangible.
As I sat down to do these readings, I was thinking about UBC (groundbreaking, I know). I have spent nearly half my life here; I went to high school here, I did my undergrad here, I lived here and worked elsewhere, I lived elsewhere and worked here, I came back as a graduate student. Since I was 13, there has not been a day when I did not have some kind of affiliation with UBC. I also have a wonderful friend who spent some of that time in my ear criticizing UBC’s architecture (Christina). This went on for years, but here is what stuck with me: “Why is it that they built Buchanan Tower in a brutalist style? What kind of brutality did they want us to endure?” She meant it as a joke and we laughed, but on rough days as an undergrad in rainy late fall, I imagined a professor in the window looking down at my misery from the 12th floor of Buchanan Tower. Brutal.
I loved Shepherd’s admission that “for decades I either walked or drove to the University of Cape Town campus, so that I feel that I too have been imprinted by this habitus, and that I carry its marks as an unwilling legacy.” Me too, Nick! In some ways, in this time, this is such a gift for me. I love that my regular exposure to BC First Nations art has helped me be able to place a piece of work on the map along the coast because I have come to see the markers of north versus south coast nations in their carving, painting, weaving, etc. I love that I could tell you the stories, top to bottom, illustrated on the Reconciliation Pole because I looked at it every day for years. I love that I get to carry this knowledge to wherever I go next. But “these marks as an unwilling legacy” have also left me, as Brasher, Alderman and Inwood write, a “wounded place in need of memory work.”
Though I loved the set of readings I did, I want to focus here on the policy at Yale that Brasher, Alderman and Inwood write about. The policy states: “There is a strong presumption against renaming a building on the basis of the values associated with its namesake. Such a renaming should be considered only in exceptional circumstances.” I will admit that this made me snort very ungracefully, because of the use of the word “exceptional.” It is this term that makes it clear to me that the Yale policy contradicts itself. What is exceptional today may not have been 200 years ago, but that does not make it any less exceptional today (and vice versa! People of the 1800s would’ve been blown away by the frappuchino). Yet, Brasher, Alderman and Inwood go on to explain that the policy also takes into account (I am paraphrasing, obviously):
1. Whether the person did stuff that didn’t vibe with Yale at the time
2. Whether the person was controversial when they were alive
3. How much money the person gave to Yale at the time (“forming community at the university”)
4. Whether Yale chose, long ago, to honour the person due to something oppositional to Yale’s current vibes
So we can see the time travelling wormholes and loopholes, right? When assessing exceptional circumstances, they have to be both exceptional “then” and exceptional “now.” It has to have been a mistake, and not an intentional supporting of, say, a slave owner or a KKK leader for being what they were and are. If someone tried to publicly participate in the slave trade at Robson Square, it would likely be considered exceptional today. UBC would say it went against its current vibes (tuum est, and whatnot). UBC would probably not name a building after them. But in New Haven, 300 years ago, nothing about that set of circumstances would be exceptional: it would slide through on items #1-3, and, as long as Mr. Yale Bigwig (update, his name was James Pierpont) didn’t name a building after his ability to participate in the slave trade, and instead because of all the money he gave to Yale that he made off the slave trade, it would be fine to keep that man’s name on a building for all eternity. Brutal.
This Yale rant stemmed from something I wrote in the margins of this article: white supremacy is not exceptional. I noticed the same thing in the renaming of UNC’s building to Carolina Hall and MTSU’s building to the Army ROTC Building. These were offered as the “colour-blind” alternatives to the colourful individuals whose names they used to hold instead of using Zora Neale Hurston’s name. North (and South) Carolina is named after English King Charles I or possibly II, pre-confederation. The name was stamped on the land as the imperial genocide began against the Cherokee and Tuscarora Peoples, who were pushed west and north, respectively. And there is no need to explain why the “Army ROTC” is not a colour-blind institution. White supremacy is so unexceptional.
So not one to end on a downer, as you know, I want to talk about tə šxʷhəleləm̓s tə k̓ʷaƛ̓kʷəʔaʔɬ. This is the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ name gifted by xʷməθkʷəy̓əm to UBC. I used to work in Indigenous initiatives at UBC and let me tell you, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm does not just go about throwing names around for no reason. I was told that xʷməθkʷəy̓əm does not name places after people at all because it is thought of as a tie that binds the spirit to the physical world and curbs someone’s spirit from exercising their agency the afterlife about where to be and what to hold onto. An aside, we have talked a lot about agency this term and how to see it in action, but sometimes we just cannot see it and that does not mean it is not there. Anyway, so tə šxʷhəleləm̓s tə k̓ʷaƛ̓kʷəʔaʔɬ is the series of newly-constructed student residences near Gage Apartments and the West Coast Suites. tə šxʷhəleləm̓s tə k̓ʷaƛ̓kʷəʔaʔɬ translates roughly to, “The Houses of the Ones Belonging to the Saltwater.” UBC Housing has written the name out, just as it is written here, all over the place, and says it is a commitment to prioritizing the complexity of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language over ease for non-speakers. Even in translation, what values hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ reveals. If we were writing in English, we would maybe say, “The Saltwater Peoples’ Houses.” We would make it possessive, holding a sense of ownership. But in the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ translation to English, it is clear: the Ones in question to not own the Houses, nor do they own the Saltwater. They belong. I could write a thousand more words on this, but what gifts we have in this time, to change what is unexceptional.
You can go online and hear the brilliant and wonderful Dr. Larry Grant pronounce tə šxʷhəleləm̓s tə k̓ʷaƛ̓kʷəʔaʔɬ (as well as each of the names of the Houses), here: https://vancouver.housing.ubc.ca/houses-of-ones-belonging-to-saltwater-names/.
Over a dinner conversation this week, someone told me they were moving to a place where they would be significantly better off socio-economically in comparison to the rest of the population than they are here. Reflecting on past experiences where they were in a similar situation, they said, “you feel the inequality more there.” I think they were referring to the fact that there is increased inequality in this other place, but I wonder about how much their perception is influenced by the shift from their move from center to margin in terms of socio-economic status.
My point is that inequality feels different when you are speaking from the margins. Justice feels different when you are speaking from the margins. Memory feels different when you are speaking from the margins. When you are speaking from the centre, your position feels natural, taken-for-granted, a matter of course.
In “Memorials and Monuments,” Alderman and Dwyer state, “Memorials and monuments are important symbolic conduits for not just expressing certain versions of history but casting legitimacy upon them. They give the past a tangibility and familiarity – making the history they commemorate appear to be part of the natural and taken-for-granted order of things.” In other words, state-sanctioned memorials and monuments serve as symbolic storytelling devices that make vast and complex histories appear to have been linear, predetermined, and two-dimensional. But in doing so, they shine a spotlight on the centre while enacting erasure on those at the margins. They tell a story in which the social and political organization of a group is assumed to be just and natural. Yet, if it was so natural, so predetermined, why would we need these monuments to remember? Instead, it seems as though state-sanctioned memorials and monuments serve as projections of the present into both the past and the future.
Yet these official narratives are not without contestation. In “Monuments, Memory and Forgetting in Postcolonial North-East India,” Guite describes vernacular spaces, which are formed by those who have felt ignored by the state and have persisted in resistance to totalizing state projects. In creating these vernacular spaces, the politics of remembering remains a site of contestation.
I wonder if part of the drive to create these vernacular spaces in the face of erasure is that things are felt more strongly from the margins and insist on being remembered.
Question: What is missed when standing at the centre that can only be seen from the margins? Are counter-narratives oriented to memorialization in the present or are they also projections into the past and the future?
Lots of interesting things coming out of this week’s readings- I loved the Alderman, Brasher, & Dwyer piece especially as it drew out the concepts of wounded places, affective heritage, and memory as work. I found myself thinking about their concept of sanctification (“the creation of a sacred place for remembering […] accompanied by the building of memorials and monuments”, p39) in contrast to the process of sanitation outlined in Li’s article about comfort women.
One of the things that stands out in Li’s article is the ways that various groups used the memorialization of comfort women as a means to their own ends- for Japanese ultra-nationalists, the memory of comfort women became an issue of national “pride”, to be addressed using misogynistic and hateful methods, and on the other hand, became an issue of Korean nationalism, where comfort women’s memory was strategically used to further narratives of Korean resistance to Japanese imperialism. Of course, this played out without making room for the experiences of women, and still contributed to their silencing, because the narrative was no longer about survivors and instead about some IR bro nationalist contest. I am of course doing a much worse job articulating this, but there’s this one great line where Li quotes from Sharon Block, describing the ways that discussions of sexual violence silence women by essentially making them “an occasion for men to speak to other men about a range of male prerogatives” (94). I particularly appreciated the points that Li made about the ways that the myth of the perfect victim were imposed on surviving comfort women, so that empathy for them was conditional on perception of a woman as “pure” and “innocent”.
Li’s discussion about the perfect victim myth and the erasure of experiences of Korean “camptown” sex workers and Vietnamese women who were subjected to violence by Korean troops brought me back to the same question I asked last week about why it is so difficult to remember complexity. This week’s readings naturally led to a variation of that question for me- who does it serve to NOT remember complexity? Well, it seems to be those who benefit in some way from some sort of status quo- in the case of comfort women, those who benefited were those who were privileged by a patriarchal nationalist system, and those who were disproportionately affected were poor women. Asking who benefits when we don’t remember complexity feels in some ways like an obvious question, but then again, isn’t it important to ask obvious questions sometimes?
I had a bit of a hater moment after this- I was thinking about how, in many cases, it’s the easy narratives I see most represented in pop culture and public memory. It’s the narratives that are harder to integrate into a binary memory of an event, the narratives that challenge our understanding of ourselves as being beyond reproach, as holding the moral high ground, as being the keeper of righteous anger, that are less depicted. So, (and here’s my emo hater moment), is it inevitable that complexity is erased in early remembering? Is it inevitable that remembering seems to be a process of correction, over and over again? Is the correcting and recorrecting a process of memory itself? What do we do if the process of remembering is violent too? Is that a process I can accept? Anyways, I did spiral without fully understanding what the spiral was spiralling about.
What hauled me out of my spiral was Li’s description of Lee Yong-soo, a Korean comfort woman survivor and human rights activist, who attended the unveiling of a statue in Seoul dedicated to the memory of Vietnamese women, and dedicated flowers to the victims. Li stresses that Lee’s attendance demonstrates a commitment to refusing to prioritise the experiences of one group at the expense of another- in other words, embracing the complexity and refusing to not do it justice. This got me thinking- perhaps part of the antidote to erasure is solidarity. So then, maybe we should be asking questions about how to “do” solidarity better. How can we lean into solidarity as a remedy for erasure? How do we do solidarity without appropriation? What does solidarity in remembering actually look like? To me, it seems the answers begin with refocusing on how to do relational work.
How can we make remembering complexity inevitable? (borrowing from someone, but I don’t know who- a reading from last term perhaps, which I think asked how we could make violence unimaginable).
Reading Guite’s work reinforced a thought I’ve had for a long time: history is almost always told from the perspective of the winners. It’s a reminder to critically examine what we believe and where our information comes from. In my own life, I’ve always been drawn to public artworks and the ways memory is displayed—whether it’s a statue in a park, graffiti on a bridge, or a plaque on a bench. But the bigger and more “official” the monument, the more I find myself questioning its true purpose. Was it placed there with genuine intent, or was it simply a performative gesture meant to check a diversity box? Worse, could it be a silent signal that certain groups—particularly BIPOC communities—are not truly welcomed in that space? The War Memorial Gymnasium comes to mind, where history and exclusion are intertwined. Additionally, the larger and more expensive the memorial, the more we must consider who funded it. Given how capitalism functions, it’s usually the dominant ruling class—rarely including minorities—who control these narratives. This reading reinforced that idea when Guite argues that sites of memory do not just reflect history but actively create and reinforce power structures. One concept that really stood out to me was “vernacular memorials”—the idea that marginalized groups, seeing how memory sites are so heavily politicized and controlled, take it upon themselves to create their own memorials in less structured ways. This reminds me of graffiti—raw, unfiltered, and often dismissed, yet a powerful tool of resistance, much like the train graffiti we see today.
I’ve read hundreds of academic papers in my university life, but never has the opening of an article caught me so off guard as Nick Shepherd’s The Shadow of Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town. The first line alone set the tone: “On March 9th, 2015, Chumane Maxwele, a student at the University of Cape Town, threw a bucket of shit at a statue of Cecil Rhodes, prominently sited at the main pedestrian entrance to the university.” This reading left me feeling empowered by the collective struggle of students, almost in a Marxist, community-driven way. It highlighted the contradiction of student life—we exist in a space of both disadvantage and privilege. On one hand, we’re at the bottom of the university hierarchy, but on the other, without our money and presence, the institution would not function. The protests against the Rhodes statue were a perfect example of this dynamic—students successfully got the statue of this colonialist removed, but in response, the university increased security and control. There’s something melancholic about this. The events in Shepherd’s article happened nearly a decade ago, yet similar struggles persist today. Once again, it is students who are leading the charge for change. Removing the statue was symbolically important, but it raises a bigger question: are we renaming buildings and tearing down statues because it is truly the right thing to do, or because it is the easiest thing to do? Statues are just objects—what matters is what they represent. In the case of Rhodes, the statue symbolized colonialism and racism. Taking it down doesn’t mean the problem is solved—it simply marks step one in a much longer journey toward decolonization and institutional restructuring.
Jordan Brasher’s article introduced me to a concept that genuinely shocked me—the idea of universities as “wounded places” of memory. Before reading this, I associated wounded places with sites of mass death or destruction, but this reading made me rethink that entirely. One of the key takeaways was how easily universities could remove problematic names—but rarely do. And when they finally do, it’s often with minimal effort—perhaps adding a small plaque for “context”, or at best, choosing a neutral replacement name instead of honoring a BIPOC figure. This ties back to power structures and performative activism. Changing a name is one thing—actively working toward decolonization is something entirely different.
Across these readings, a common theme emerged: history, memory, and power are deeply intertwined. Whether through monuments, statues, or place names, those in control shape public memory in ways that often erase or distort marginalized perspectives. At the same time, resistance—whether through student activism, vernacular memorials, or public protest—shows that these narratives can still be challenged. The question remains: how do we ensure that efforts toward historical reckoning go beyond symbolic gestures and lead to real institutional change?
This week’s readings reinforced how memory is an active process like something that is constantly contested, reshaped, and mobilized for different purposes. Through the lens of university like UBC place naming, decolonial movements, and counter-memorial practices, these articles illustrate how memory work is not just about remembering but also about power: who gets to be remembered, how, and why.
Brasher, Alderman, and Inwood (2017) argue that universities are “wounded places” where historical injustices continue to shape campus experiences. I was particularly struck by their argument that place names and monuments function as a “hidden curriculum,” subtly teaching students which histories are valued and which are erased. The idea that universities reinforce white supremacy even abroad not just through exclusionary policies but also through their landscapes is something I had not thought about explicitly before. It makes me reflect on my own university back home—what names and symbols have I walked past every day without questioning their significance?
The Rhodes Must Fall movement, as analyzed by Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018), underscores how memory is not just about the past but is also a site of present struggle. Rhodes’ statue at the University of Cape Town became a lightning rod for a broader critique of coloniality in higher education. The movement’s success in removing the statue did not mark an end, but rather a new beginning like it catalyzed wider conversations about decolonization, epistemic justice, and structural inequalities in academia. The chapter highlights how these movements are rarely just about a single statue or a single name; they are about dismantling systems that continue to exclude and marginalize.
The concept of “comfort women” memorials (Li, 2022) really stood out to me and it adds another layer to this discussion by examining how memory is mobilized within geopolitical conflicts. Li illustrates how these memorials are sites of feminist activism but also contested spaces where nationalism, historical revisionism, and gendered violence intersect. What stood out to me most was the argument that these memorials do not just preserve memory, they shape it. The Statue of Peace, for example, is not just a representation of past violence but an ongoing political statement that resists erasure and historical revisionism. This made me think about how counter-commemoration efforts on university campuses function in a similar way, noot just as responses to history, but as ongoing acts of resistance and claims to space.
When doing the tour I connected with Brasher et al. (2017) reading where they emphasize that simply removing names or statues is not enough—there must be active efforts toward what they call “landscape fairness,” ensuring that new naming and memorialization practices actually challenge dominant historical narratives rather than just obscuring them.
One question I keep returning to is: what does meaningful counter-commemoration look like? If decolonization is more than just renaming buildings, what are the concrete steps universities should take to transform themselves into truly inclusive and reparative spaces?
This week’s readings made me think about memory, monuments, and erasure across different contexts and how sites of memory function as both physical markers of history and as battlegrounds for contested narratives. Alderman and Dwyer’s reading on Memorials and Monuments helped me frame these debates through different lenses: as text, arena, and performance. The idea of memorials as texts that inscribe power onto landscapes made me think about whose histories are remembered or erased. Their discussion of roads named after Martin Luther King Jr., often located in marginalized Black communities, mirrored how, in India, Dalit leaders’ statues are frequently placed in segregated and less prominent spaces. In the current Indian nationalist context, revisionist histories are also seeing the replacement or removal or these memorials particularly if they belong to those from Muslim or other minority communities.
The politics of placement reinforces social hierarchies and normative histories, making these sites more about symbolic containment as memorial becomes an arena. It was also interesting to read about how memorials become sites of performance, particularly in the context of the mothers of Argentina’s Plaza de Mayo wearing white scarves that have become a powerful symbol against forgetting and erasure. The idea of the memorial as performance, arena and text also helped me understand the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes as a focal point of decolonial struggle, described by Shepherd. Its eventual removal was not just about the statue itself but a performative act of reclaiming space and challenging institutional legacies of colonialism. This made me think about similar struggles in other post-colonial nations such as India, where colonial-era statues, names and memories persist, despite post-independence nationalist movements that sought to reclaim public spaces. Much like the University of Cape Town, the landscape, architecture, and spatial organization of several memorials embody deep colonial inscriptions.
Guite’s Monuments, Memory, and Forgetting in North-East India further complicates these narratives by showing how memory is not just about commemoration but also about strategic forgetting. The British colonial project erased indigenous histories such as those associated with the Kuki Rebellion while valorizing its imperial achievements. The distinction between official and vernacular memory depicts this contest over historical representation, where ethnic minorities have created vernacular memorials for their local heroes. These tensions are also evident in the comfort women memorial debates outlined in Li’s reading. While ultranationalists can reject these memorials as attacks on Japan’s reputation, they also reinforce a narrow and moralistic framing of female victimhood rather than addressing broader systems of wartime sexual violence.
Question: When does removing a statue or renaming a street become an act of justice, and when does it risk becoming erasure?