Thursday 20th of June

9.30am-1pm

Heritage Hub Event

Room 237C, ARC Building

Siân Jones, Dr Marie-Annick Gournet and Ben Stephenson

Dr Marie-Annick Gournet is Associate Professor of Lifelong Learning and Inclusive Pedagogy and Director of Part-time Programmes & Short Courses at the University of Bristol. She currently leads a research project on the legacy of enslavement with a particular focus on Bristol. Marie-Annick founded the Global Majority Teachers Network, a community of practice bringing together qualified Black and Asian teachers in Bristol, and established a UKRI-funded research team of 16 GMTs doing pedagogical research on issues relating to the legacy of enslavement and its impact. Marie-Annick has worked with a range of organisations in diverse Non-Executive Director roles. She is currently a member of the National Education Enterprise Alliance and a Non-Executive Director at Gloucestershire NHS Foundation Trust.

Ben Stephenson is a placemaking consultant with a wide range of experience in delivery. He is a Senior Fellow of the Institute of Place Management, Chief Executive of the Angel Islington Business Improvement District, and an Expert on the Government’s High Streets Task Force programme. Ben is co-author of Reviewing Contested Statues, Memorials and Place Names: Guidance for Public Bodies (2021), a report that has been used to help guide processes around the review, evaluation and decision-making around the future of contested heritage in London, Bristol and other UK cities. Ben’s consultancy focuses on the development of inclusive place strategy in which citizen participation plays a pivotal role, including in deliberations around cultural and heritage issues.

About this Session

Against the backdrop of a politically polarised atmosphere, how are those responsible for planning, designing and managing public space approaching the issue of contested heritage? What does this reveal about what is needed to make cities inclusive and welcoming to everyone? Crucially, how does reckoning with the past help to build just and equitable futures?

Led by two of the authors of Reviewing Contested Statues, Memorials and Place Names (2021), this interactive workshop will engage participants in critical discussion of processes of review and decision-making around statues, street names and other forms of memorialisation. Utilising real-life examples, participants will examine and debate how councils, universities and other public bodies can approach the practical and ethical challenges that this work poses.

Extended session description

Led by Gournet and Stephenson, this interactive workshop will engage participants in discussion of processes of review and decision-making around statues, street names and other forms of contested heritage. Participants will debate scenarios based on real-life examples drawn from cities across the UK, in order to consider how councils, universities and other public bodies might manage these situations. They will also be asked to reflect on what their own approach would be to addressing the practical and ethical challenges posed by contested heritage, particularly that associated with the history of slavery, colonialism and imperialism.

The toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol in June 2020 set in motion a public debate about Britain’s national heritage, as well as the heritage of its four constituent nations, and the historical figures who continue to be commemorated. At least 150 reviews and audits of contested heritage took place in the UK’s towns, cities and institutions in 2021/22. Many of these were carried out with little formative guidance and resulted in decisions to both remove and retain being made without public consultation, arguably contributing to social division. 

Such actions took place in a politically polarised atmosphere, the effects of which we continue to feel. As the culture wars rumble on, how are those charged with planning, designing and managing public space approaching the processes of review, decision-making, communication and engagement with citizens around contested heritage? What does this tell us about the work that is needed to make cities inclusive and welcoming to everyone? Crucially, how does reckoning with the past help to build just and equitable futures?

This workshop offers participants the unique opportunity to engage with the authors of national guidance on reviewing contested heritage, statues and street names, and learn first-hand about their experiences of putting the guidance into practice in real-life scenarios across the UK.

Learning outcomes

Please provide at least one and a maximum of four learning outcomes. They should complete the sentence: By the end of this session, participants will...

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge and nuanced understanding of processes of review and decision-making concerning monuments, memorials, statues and other forms of contested heritage;
• Critically discuss and analyse these processes of review and decision-making based on examination of real-life case studies selected by the workshop’s presenters/speakers;
• Reflect on issues of equality, diversity and inclusion, and how reckoning with ‘challenging history’ and ‘difficult heritage’ can help to build just and equitable futures;
• Reflect on their career development, specifically the relevance of their doctoral research to consultancy and non-executive directorial experience in the public and third sectors as well as the potential societal impact of their work.

Who might be interested?

This session will be of interest to doctoral researchers in all disciplines of the arts and humanities, particularly those interested in contested memorial heritage and the politics of the past in public spaces, as well as the legacies of empire and slavery and decolonial debates and practices. It will also be of interest to students hoping to develop a career in the heritage and museum sectors.

Click here to register.

First published: 11 May 2023