Solidifying identity discourse through the politicized monumentation of struggle

Abstract

This article investigates contemporary examples of monumentation and the extent to which they solidify and reproduce a politicized discourse on identities. Focusing predominantly on the representation of refugees and migrants, the article is broken down into four sections, the first of which looks into the challenges of monumentation and the discourse it represents. The second part includes three case studies, each representing a different vestige of the struggle with the discourse propagated by certain monuments. The core of the argument concerns the parameters of social representation of the suffering subject, be it the refugee, the asylum seeker, their mother, or the colonial subject. I propose an adaptation of Fairclough's model of language and power to include monuments as replicas of texts which can be analyzed at word, discursive and social levels.