Politics of Memory: Making Slavery Visible in the Public Space

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 793
Author(s):  
McVey
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
The Public

scholarly journals A Bridge to the Past: Public Memory and Nostalgia for the Communist Times in Modern Georgia

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Kovtiak
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
The Public ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
Soviet People ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ideological Background ◽  
Flea Market

AbstractThis paper deals with the politics of memory in contemporary Georgia’s public space. It explores the relations between official and vernacular commemorations of the Soviet past in Tbilisi. In this paper, I have studied the forms of materialization of vernacular memories in the public space and provided a frame in which they exist, including the ideological background of decommunization in Georgia and peculiarities of the Soviet era museumizing in state museums. The official discourse demonizes the previous epoque and neglects all its benefits, whereas the ordinary people are quite nuanced in their memories of their past – this contradiction leads to manifestations of vernacular memories. Therefore, this paper focuses mostly on Tbilisi’s Dry Bridge, a famous flea market where the memory of the recent Soviet past is negotiated. The main argument is that this particular flea market and its artifacts might be regarded as a “vernacular memorial” and “lieu de memoire” where nostalgia for an officially demonized era can be expressed and materialized. This paper explores the items that are on sale, explaining their meaning for the post-Soviet people, and describes the intangible practices that can be observed there. In addition, this paper unpacks that these nostalgic practices should not be considered as “unhealthy” or “retrospective” as it helps people to adapt to modernity and develop by considering more than one hegemonic version of their past.

scholarly journals Memorial Ambivalences in Postcommunist Romania: Generational Attitudes towards the Symbolic Legacy of Communism

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Mihai Stelian Rusu ◽  
Alin Croitoru
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Important Place ◽  
The Public ◽  
Memory Work ◽  
To Come

After the demise of state socialism, public space became an issue of contention that occupied an important place within societies’ efforts to come to terms with the recent past. Extant scholarship documented extensively how postcommunist societies in Central and Eastern Europe have reconfigured the public space by removing the symbolic presence of the former regime (e.g., monuments and statues, but also place- and street names). However, there is a scarcity of research done on exploring the reception of these broad changes brought to the public statuary and urban nomenclature. In this study, we aim to contribute to this nascent strand of literature by investigating the generational differences in social attitudes towards the symbolic transformation of public space in postcommunist Romania. Data collected through a national web-survey conducted in February 2021 (n = 1156) revealed significant intergenerational differences regarding the removal of monuments and the renaming of streets. In particular, higher approval of such memory work was found among the generations born during communism in comparison to the postcommunist generation. Taking stock of these generational differences, as well as the factors underpinning them, contributes to a better understanding of how ordinary people relate to the politics of memory enacted in transforming societies.

Habermas, Cultural Hegemony, and the Educational Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Arabic Speaking

This study explores Habermas’s work in terms of the relevance of his theory of the public sphere to the politics and poetics of the Arab oral tradition and its pedagogical practices. In what ways and forms does Arab heritage inform a public sphere of resistance or dissent? How does Habermas’s notion of the public space help or hinder a better understanding of the Arab oral tradition within the sociopolitical and educational landscape of the Arabic-speaking world? This study also explores the pedagogical implications of teaching Arab orality within the context of the public sphere as a contested site that informs a mode of resistance against social inequality and sociopolitical exclusions.

Public space of the trustworthiness of sociological knowledge: The case of electoral research

2020 ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
OLEKSANDR STEGNII
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Good Tool ◽  
Sociological Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
Approval Ratings ◽  
The Impact

The paper analyses specific features of sociological data circulation in a public space during an election campaign. The basic components of this kind of space with regard to sociological research are political actors (who put themselves up for the election), voters and agents. The latter refer to professional groups whose corporate interests are directly related to the impact on the election process. Sociologists can also be seen as agents of the electoral process when experts in the field of electoral sociology are becoming intermingled with manipulators without a proper professional background and publications in this field. In a public space where an electoral race is unfolding, empirical sociological research becomes the main form of obtaining sociological knowledge, and it is primarily conducted to measure approval ratings. Electoral research serves as an example of combining the theoretical and empirical components of sociological knowledge, as well as its professional and public dimensions. Provided that sociologists meet all the professional requirements, electoral research can be used as a good tool for evaluating the trustworthiness of results reflecting the people’s expression of will. Being producers of sociological knowledge, sociologists act in two different capacities during an election campaign: as analysts and as pollsters. Therefore, it is essential that the duties and areas of responsibility for professional sociologists should be separated from those of pollsters. Another thing that needs to be noted is the negative influence that political strategists exert on the trustworthiness of survey findings which are going to be released to the public. Using the case of approval ratings as an illustration, the author analyses the most common techniques aimed at misrepresenting and distorting sociological data in the public space. Particular attention is given to the markers that can detect bogus polling companies, systemic violations during the research process and data falsification.

The public and the private: reconfiguring the interrelationship during a civil act

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Natalia Kostenko
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Physical Interaction ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

The subject matter of research interest here is the movement of sociological reflection concerning the interplay of public and private realms in social, political and individual life. The focus is on the boundary constructs embodying publicity, which are, first of all, classical models of the space of appearance for free citizens of the polis (H. Arendt) and the public sphere organised by communicative rationality (Ju. Habermas). Alternative patterns are present in modern ideas pertaining to the significance of biological component in public space in the context of biopolitics (M. Foucault), “inclusive exclusion of bare life” (G. Agamben), as well as performativity of corporeal and linguistic experience related to the right to participate in civil acts such as popular assembly (J. Butler), where the established distinctions between the public and the private are levelled, and the interrelationship of these two realms becomes reconfigured. Once the new media have come into play, both the structure and nature of the public sphere becomes modified. What assumes a decisive role is people’s physical interaction with online communication gadgets, which instantly connect information networks along various trajectories. However, the rapid development of information technology produces particular risks related to the control of communications industry, leaving both public and private realms unprotected and deforming them. This also urges us to rethink the issue of congruence of the two ideas such as transparency of societies and security.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Llano
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Social Conflict ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
The Media ◽  
The City

As is described in this conclusion, more than the media and culture, Madrid’s public space constituted the primary arena where reactions and attitudes toward social conflict and inequalities were negotiated. Social conflict in the public space found expression through musical performance, as well as through the rise of noise that came with the expansion and modernization of the city. Through their impact on public health and morality, noise and unwelcomed musical practices contributed to the refinement of Madrid’s city code and the modernization of society. The interference of vested political interests, however, made the refining of legislation in these areas particularly difficult. Analysis of three musical practices, namely, flamenco, organilleros, and workhouse bands, has shown how difficult it was to adopt consistent policies and approaches to tackling the forms of social conflict that were associated with musical performance.

Conquering the Public Space

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Llano
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The Public ◽  
San Bernardino ◽  
The City

This chapter presents an account of the San Bernardino band as the public facade of that workhouse. The image of children who had been picked up from the streets, disciplined, and taught to play an instrument as they marched across the city in uniform helped broadcast the message that the municipal institutions of social aid were contributing to the regeneration of society. This image contrasted with the regime of discipline and punishment inside the workhouse and thus helped to legitimize the workhouse’s public image. The privatization of social aid from the 1850s meant that the San Bernardino band engaged with a growing range of institutions and social groups and carried out an equally broad range of social services. It was thus able to serve as the extension through which Madrid’s authorities could gain greater intimacy with certain population sectors, particularly with the working classes.

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