De-commemoration

De-commemoration is a social phenomenon that regards the destruction or profound modification of material representations of the past in public space, representing the opposite or undoing of memorialization.

[1] Guy Beiner introduced the concept of de-commemorating in reference to hostility towards acts of commemoration that can result in violent assaults and in iconoclastic defacement or destruction of monuments.

[2] The very dishonor that damage or removal brings to the memorial gives it back its importance in a distinct way juxtaposed to commemorative plaques, statues, and monuments that recall the past in public spaces that are very often ignored in everyday life.

[7] De-commemoration is not a recent social phenomenon,[8] and has involved five different approaches in historical examples according to a framework set by Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg.

This is the type of de-commemoration, such as that carried out during and following the Black Lives Matter movement, or in Latin American countries confronted with the legacy of colonialism, or in European ports regarding the Atlantic slave trade.