DE-COMMEMORATION: Removing Statues and Renaming Places

In the wake of recent protests against police violence and racism, calls to dismantle problematic memorials have reverberated around the globe. This is not a new phenomenon, however, nor is it limited to the Western world. De-Commemoration focuses on the concept of de-commemoration as it relates to remembrance. Drawing on research from experts on memory dynamics across various disciplines, this extensive collection seeks to make sense of the current state of de-commemoration as it transforms contemporary societies around the world.

Sarah Gensburger is Professor of sociology and political science at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and Sciences Po-Paris and President of the international Memory Studies Association since 2021. She is the author of Beyond Memory: Can We Really Learn from the Past? (with Sandrine Lefranc, Palgrave, 2020), and Memory on my Doorstep: Chronicles of the Bataclan Neighborhood, Paris, 2015-2016 (Leuven University Press, 2019) as well as co-editor of Administrations of Memory (with Sara Dybris McQuaid(Springer, 2022).

Jenny Wüstenberg is Professor of History & Memory Studies at Nottingham Trent University. She is the founder and past Co-President of the Memory Studies Association (2016-2023), as well as Chair of the COST Action on “Slow Memory: Transformative Practices in Times of Uneven and Accelerating Change” (2021-2025). She is the author of Civil Society and Memory in Postwar Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and the co-editor, most recently, of Agency in Transnational Memory Politics (with Aline Sierp, Berghahn 2020) and the Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism (with Yifat Gutman, 2023).

This book is part of the “Worlds of Memory” series by Berghahn Books in collaboration with the Memory Studies Association. For more information, please visit here.