Symbolic Struggles Over Violent Pasts in Divided Cities: Between Control and Resistance

This paper examines how dominant communities (ethnic or national groups) in divided cities attempt to use the urban landscape to control the collective memory of these cities’ violent past, as well as the responses of subaltern groups to these efforts. We posit that in post-conflict and protracted-conflict urban spaces, the past continues to trouble the present, prompting dominant communities to try to exert control over its enduring symbolic markers. However, these efforts, in turn, sometimes elicit resistance from members of other communities in the city. To this end, the paper, which focuses on Jerusalem, a notable case of a divided city, analyzes an original dataset that includes all state and municipal officially sanctioned memorials and monuments commemorating the Israeli-Arab conflict in both West and East Jerusalem, as well as public responses to them. By exploring the texts on these memorials and monuments, their visual representations, and their geographic locations in the urban space, as well as the ways these symbolic artifacts are received, we emphasize the significance of symbolic practices in attempts to shape the representation of violent histories between communities in divided cities, as well as their political significance in the relations between these communities, including violent conflicts and their potential resolution.