Who and what should we remember? Public commemoration as a site of justice

Public commemoration is different from other goods that a state distributes or activities that states undertake, as it is a practice of memory, that involves ritualization, which focuses on emotional connection and identity formation rather than strict historical accuracy.It is among other things a way of enacting an emotionally resonant narrative about who 'we' are, by selecting and making special a particular interpretation of the persons or events commemorated.While public commemoration often functions to strengthen bonds of affiliation between individual citizens or between citizens and the state, it can also be a powerful source of alienation or shame, where what is selected for commemoration (and the stories told about it) reinforces a narrow, false or divisive conception of who 'we' are.As a result of these factors, public commemoration raises questions of justice that are both significant and distinctive.This paper provides an orientation for conceptualising such questions.