Cast in Stone: Monuments, Geography, and Nationalism

Abstract

Since the 19th century at least public monuments have been the foci for collective participation in the politics and public life of villages, towns, and cities. They have acted as important centres around which local and national political and cultural positions have been articulated. I argue that monuments are an important, but underutilised, resource for the geographer interested in debates surrounding national identity. Through a variety of examples, I explore the ways in which examinations of the sociology, iconography, spatialisation, and gendering of statues reveal important ways in which national ‘imagined communities’ are constructed.