Les monuments renversés et Black Lives Matter : Race, genre et décolonisation dans l’espace public. Un entretien avec Charmaine A. Nelson

Auteurs-es

  • Christiana Abraham Concordia University

Mots-clés :

décolonialité, représentations genrées, recontextualisation des monuments, espace public, justice et injustice raciales, symbolisme, monuments renversés

Résumé

Cet article traite de la récente réaction à l’encontre des monuments publics incitée par les manifestations de Black Lives Matter (BLM) en Amérique du Nord et ailleurs, à la suite du meurtre par la police de George Floyd, un Afro-Américain non armé aux États-Unis. Depuis ce drame, des manifestants sont descendus dans la rue pour attirer l’attention sur la brutalité policière, l’injustice raciale et le racisme systémique dont sont victimes les Noirs, les Autochtones et les personnes de couleur aux États-Unis, au Canada, en Grande-Bretagne et dans certains pays européens. Lors de plusieurs de ces manifestations, des citoyens révoltés ont démoli, renversé ou dégradé des monuments représentant des personnages historiques célèbres associés au colonialisme, à l’esclavage, au racisme et à l’impérialisme. Les manifestants ont exigé le retrait des statues et des monuments qui symbolisent l’esclavage, le pouvoir colonial et le racisme systémique et historique. Qu’est-ce qui rend ces monuments problématiques et qu’est-ce qui motive ces actes délibérés et spectaculaires de provocation à l’égard de ces monuments omniprésents? Par le biais d’un entretien avec l’historienne de l’art Charmaine A. Nelson, cet article explore les significations de ces expressions décoloniales puissantes à ce moment de l’histoire. L’entretien aborde des questions complexes liées à la monumentalisation et à la sphère publique, au symbolisme et à la justice et l’injustice raciales. Par ce moyen, il suggère que les monuments du futur doivent être réimaginés et redéfinis parallèlement à l’évolution des connaissances sociales et aux changements générationnels.

Statistiques

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Biographie de l'auteur-e

Christiana Abraham, Concordia University

Christiana Abraham is an Assistant Professor in Communication Studies at Concordia University. She holds a PhD in Communication Studies from McGill University. Her teaching and research specialities are in critical race studies, visual representations and culture; de/post-coloniality and gender; race, ethnicity and media and transnational and global-South media practices. Her academic interventions are located at the intersections of media, critical race pedagogies, gender, and post/de-colonialization. A scholar, media practitioner, and independent curator, her scholarship is interested in the destabilization and re-visualization of visualities in anti-racist and de-colonial pedagogies. She is the curator of Protests and Pedagogy: Representations, Memories, and Meanings, an archival exhibition that commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the Sir George Williams Student protest.

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Publié-e

2021-05-17