Abstract

Global memorial conflicts amplify widespread protests against ethno-cultural, racial and gender discrimination on a political level. This is followed by calls to re-discuss memorial sites that have once again become problematic and controversial. In multiple spatial contexts we are witnessing a «de-commemoration» of symbols and rituals of the past, as a reflection of disruptive conflicts and instances aimed at changing the politics of memory and historical narratives in public spaces. De-commemoration policies involve the rewriting of urban maps and with it the resignification of signs of the past (monuments, toponymy, memorial architectural complexes). It is a reflection that also requires on a historiographical level the development of a methodology of comparative investigation (when not transnational), with the aim of contributing to an update both of the public discourse and of the symbolic-ritual liturgies through which the civic and the republican civil religion.