Toppled Statues and Monuments: Perspectives on the Global Movement Confronting Heritage
Watch the recording
Event Details
On the 7th of June 2020, the statue of Edward Colston, a philanthropist involved in the slave trade, was toppled and pushed into Bristol Harbour by Black Lives Matter protesters during the George Floyd protests. On the 17th of June, following years of debate and protests from the Rhodes Must Fall campaign group, the governing body of Oriel College in Oxford called for the controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes to be removed.
This webinar will discuss these events from an international and comparative perspective by considering the changing nature of cultural heritage as a legal concept, as well as heritage laws and statue politics in other jurisdictions such as Belgium, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, and South Africa, as well as the wider role of heritage in reconciliation.
Chair
Kristin Hausler, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Discussant
Professor Steven Gallagher, CUHK
Speakers
- Dr Richard Benjamin, National Museums Liverpool
- Marti Burgess, Bevan Britan LLP
- Dr Bambi Ceuppens, Africa Museum, Tervuren
- Dr Rahul Rao, SOAS
- Elke Selter, Heritage Consultant
- Julien Suaudeau, Lecturer & Director of Film Studies at Bryn Mawr College ,Novelist
- Leanne Tse, M+ Museum, Hong Kong
Event convened by Kristin Hausler , Dorset Senior Research Fellow in Public International Law and Director, Centre for International Law, BIICL and Steven Gallagher, CUHK