Paper short abstract:

This proposal examines the contestations that anti-racist collectives have with the Christopher Columbus monument in Barcelona. The ethnographic approach to their political practices identifies counter-memories that suggest the need for transformation and decolonisation of public space.

Paper long abstract:

Europe's former metropolises have many sites of memory in their urban landscape that aim to remember with honor and nostalgia the legacies of former empires. These sites also serve to commemorate past traumas such as slavery, colonialism, and genocide. The purpose of this proposal is to critically examine the contestations that anti-racist collectives have with the imperial monumentality represented by the Christopher Columbus monument in Barcelona. The ethnographic approach to their discourses, affects and political and artistic practices identifies counter-memories that register as anti-colonial, anti-patriarchal, heterodisident and anti-capitalist. These counter-memories are mainly elaborated by racialised women and post-colonial migrants. These 'memory complexes' are understood as 'sites of racial pain' by subjects who resent colonial oppression, and become transcendental milestones in the transformation and decolonisation of public space, where senses of belonging, democracy, citizenship and social justice are renegotiated.

The tensions between these 'underground memories' and the dominant narratives of official memories and authoritative heritage discourses suggest the need to re-elaborate collective memories aligned with liberation movements. Multiple and entangled memory approaches invite us to re-imagine national scenarios and identities, to dismantle colonial temporalities, and to diminish the effects of public amnesia. The formulation of decolonial futures requires a re-framing of the power structures that perpetuate historical inequalities, including those materialized in imperial monuments and memories.