‘It was Never Just About the Statue’: Ethos of historical figures in public debates on contested cultural objects

Collective, historical memory becomes increasingly important in public debates on cultural heritage across many countries. Their key elements are contested cultural objects – such as statues or memorials – which construct nations’ memory that governs societal processes such as decolonisation or de-S...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDiscourse & society Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 193 - 214
Main Authors Pereira-Fariña, Martín, Koszowy, Marcin, Budzynska, Katarzyna
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.03.2022
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Argumentation
Collective memory
Cultural heritage
Debates
Decolonization
Discourse analysis
Discourse strategies
Memorials
Political discourse
Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich (1879-1953)
Poland
South Africa
United Kingdom > UK
United States > US
Russia
Spain
discursive strategies
collective and historical memory
argumentation
ethos associated with contested cultural objects
cultural heritage
ethos of historical figures
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Summary:Collective, historical memory becomes increasingly important in public debates on cultural heritage across many countries. Their key elements are contested cultural objects – such as statues or memorials – which construct nations’ memory that governs societal processes such as decolonisation or de-Stalinization. This paper analyses arguments about five such objects in UK, US, South Africa, Poland and Spain in order to identify discursive strategies used to argue whether to remove or to keep them. Large-scale comparative discourse analysis reveals that the ethos of historical figures – such as the Confederates or Joseph Stalin – commemorated by these cultural objects plays an essential and primary role in these debates. We argue that values associated with the character of these figures determine the dynamics of discourse and its close analysis allows us to uncover what societies are struggling with when handling artefacts of the past in the present day.
ISSN:0957-9265
1460-3624
DOI:10.1177/09579265221088143