Contested Histories in Public Space

by Walkowitz, Daniel J.; Knauer, Lisa Maya

• ISBN13: 9780822342175
• ISBN10: 0822342170
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-02-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

Contested Histories in Public Spacebrings 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, the contributing historians, anthropologists, and other scholars delve into representations of contested histories at such "sites" as 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 Zealandrs"s national museum; in the First Peoplesrs" 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: for example, the post-apartheid history of South Africars"s Voortrekker Monument, originally designed as a tribute to the Voortrekkers who colonized the countryrs"s interior. Among several essays describing how national narratives have been challenged are pieces on a dispute over how to represent Nepali history and identity, on representations of Afrocuban religions in contemporary Cuba, and on the installation in the French Pantheon in Paris of a plaque honoring Louis Delgregrave;s, a leader of Guadeloupean resistance to French colonialism.Contributors. 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, Daniel J. Walkowitz

Table of Contents

About the Series

Introduction

First Things First

Two Peoples, One Museum: Biculturalism and Visitor "Experience" at Te Papa—Our Place, New Zealand's National Museum

Contesting Time, Place, and Nation in the First Peoples' Hall of the Canadian Museum of Civilization

"Unfinished Business": Public History in a Postcolonial Nation

Colonial Legacies and Winners' Tales

Exhibiting Asia in Britain: Commerce, Consumption, and Globalization

The Alamo: Myth, Public History, and the Politics of Inclusion

Ellis Island Redux: The Imperial Turn and the Race of Ethnicity

State Stories

A Cultural Conundrum? Old Monuments and New Regimes: The Voortrekker Monument as Symbol of Afrikaner Power in a Postapartheid South Africa

Narratives of Power, the Power of Narratives: The Failing Foundational Narrative of the Ecuadorian Nation

Affective Distinctions: Race and Place in Oaxaca

Under-Stated Stories

Marking Remembrance: Nation and Ecology in Two Riverbank Monuments in Kathmandu

Saving Rio's "Cradle of Samba": Outlaw Uprisings, Racial Tourism and the Progressive State in Brazil

Afrocuban Religion, Museums, and the Cuban Nation

Haunting Delgrès

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

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