Landscapes of Memory and Socially Just Futures

This chapter reviews the importance of landscape to the process and politics of remembering (and forgetting). It provides a broad overview of current geographical work on memorial landscapes, and discusses two established frameworks for these landscape interpretations narrative and arena. The chapter means to inspire scholars to actively engage with the politics of memory and landscape interpretation. Geographers have explored how memorials and heritage sites dialectically draw meaning from and give meaning to their surroundings. A major idea underlying this work is that landscapes of memory, like all cultural landscapes, have a normative power. The social power of landscapes of memory is often realized through the broader political economy of cultural symbols and place promotion. The multiple ways in which landscapes of memory can be authored/spoken, read/heard, and experienced have led many geographers to examine the politically contentious nature of remembering the past.