Paper/Proposal Title
Heritage politics in the case of Black Lives Matter in Bolzano-Bozen, Italy
Location
M2320
Start Date
11-2-2023 5:00 PM
End Date
11-2-2023 6:15 PM
Abstract
This contribution looks at the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that took place in Bolzano-Bozen, the capital of the autonomous province of South Tyrol (Italy). As part of the BLM protests, an iconic statue of Italian cultural heritage was doused with red paint, transmitting a message with local, national, and international resonance. The case demonstrates how the USA BLM diffusion in Europe interacted with the ongoing statue wars to not only advance national level dialogues around racist legacies related to imperialism and colonialism but also specific local grievances. I marshal the concept of ‘ideological vandalism’ to argue that red paint attacks on public monuments can link transnational messages around racism and colonialism with local and national debates particularly regarding participation in heritage politics. This case underscores how claims can arise when national and international sociopolitical debates connected to colonialism and imperialism activate and surface additional local grievances around participation.
Author/Speaker Biographical Statement(s)
Alexandra Cosima Budabin received her doctorate in Politics from the New School for Social Research. She is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Minority Rights at Eurac Research. Her research on advocacy practices and non-state actors in human rights, conflict, humanitarianism and development has appeared in World Development, Perspective on Politics, New Political Science, Human Rights Quarterly, Journal of Human Rights, Humanity, and Third World Quarterly. Her first book is "Batman Saves the Congo: How Celebrities Disrupt the Politics of Development," with Lisa A. Richey (Copenhagen Business School) was published with University of Minnesota Press.
Heritage politics in the case of Black Lives Matter in Bolzano-Bozen, Italy
M2320
This contribution looks at the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that took place in Bolzano-Bozen, the capital of the autonomous province of South Tyrol (Italy). As part of the BLM protests, an iconic statue of Italian cultural heritage was doused with red paint, transmitting a message with local, national, and international resonance. The case demonstrates how the USA BLM diffusion in Europe interacted with the ongoing statue wars to not only advance national level dialogues around racist legacies related to imperialism and colonialism but also specific local grievances. I marshal the concept of ‘ideological vandalism’ to argue that red paint attacks on public monuments can link transnational messages around racism and colonialism with local and national debates particularly regarding participation in heritage politics. This case underscores how claims can arise when national and international sociopolitical debates connected to colonialism and imperialism activate and surface additional local grievances around participation.
