Toppling statues and making space: prospects for anti-racist cultural activism

Statues have long been recognized as impositions of a particular past that legitimize a power-laden present. Consequently, toppling statues, and engaging with the space they once occupied, opens up the possibility of new and multiple narratives. This article takes this moment of possibility as its starting point. Drawing from nine case studies in five countries, and from thirty-one interviews with cultural activists and other stakeholders, we identify three patterns that emerge in the aftermath of removing statues. First, removing a statue changes the hegemonic narrative of the space it once occupied. Second, stakeholders resist the imposition of a singular new narrative on that space. Third, policymakers and institutions attempt to regulate the space and the narratives it carries. We argue, further, that whilst attempts to impose a new, single narrative on the same site are widely met with obstacles, empty plinths become multivocal sites of memory in their own right.