All tagged rebuilding

Breaking Down Colston: Destruction and Transformation in London and Bristol

Breaking Down Colston: Destruction and Transformation in London and Bristol

Lindsay P. Crisp
Articles, Peer Reviewed

This article investigates articulations of material and cultural affects in the deplinthing of the Bristol memorial to Edward Colston in June 2020, and Michael Landy’s destruction of his belongings in the art event Break Down in February 2001. In Break Down, as in the deplinthing of the Colston memorial, destruction changes and expands the plane upon which objects are intelligible by bringing to our attention their material composition. The protesters’ action in Bristol and Landy’s project of systematic dismantling and granulation differ profoundly in epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic terms. However, both events confront us with the fact that matter is never entirely ‘gone.’

Colorism, Castism, and Gentrification in Bollywood

Colorism, Castism, and Gentrification in Bollywood

Rebecca Peters
Articles, Peer Reviewed

Colorism, prejudicial attitudes towards people with darker skin tones, like all -isms, creates a toxic environment for anyone who does not fall into the ideal category. When major media sources, like Bollywood in India, reinforce the oppressive attitude of discrimination based on skin color, it adds to the normalization of colorism and resulting social hierarchies and stigma. I argue that Bollywood’s desires for respectability among upper class Indian and diasporic audiences emboldens its attitudes about class, caste, and color, contributing significantly to the power and reach of colorism.

Civil Religion in Turkey: The Unifying and Divisive Potential of Material Symbols

Civil Religion in Turkey: The Unifying and Divisive Potential of Material Symbols

Patrycja Hala Saçan
Articles

Civil religion refers to citizens’ devotion and loyalty to the nation and state. Like other religions, it needs symbols that bond citizens to different notions and experiences whether non-tangible forms (political beliefs, the law, or a constitution) or tangible (flags, images, statues, and spaces). Visual representations of these forms can unite people around common values, goals, and history. This paper aims to widen our understanding of the importance of material objects in developing and sustaining national bonds in Turkey where objects and spaces have long helped to form and maintain Turkish identity, and mobilize and unite people.

Cecil John Rhodes: ‘The Complete Gentleman’ of Imperial Dominance

Cecil John Rhodes: ‘The Complete Gentleman’ of Imperial Dominance

Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Articles

Incompleteness engenders an understanding of resilient colonialism epitomised by Cecil Rhodes’ monuments and statues in Southern Africa. It draws on Tutuola’s metaphorical ‘The Complete Gentleman’ and the lessons on being and becoming from Tutuola’s skull to remind us that Rhodes’ legacy still suffers from illusions of completeness and a denial of debt and indebtedness. The call for humility and alertness to the imagined dream of a rainbow nation demands that South Africans stop learning the wrong lessons from Rhodes as exclusionary articulations of belonging informed by superiority and zero-sum games of conquest.