ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the Somali second generation, starting in 2011, has harnessed various forms of media to mobilize collective visual memories associated with their home and identity. Both the Somali diasporic community and the former Italian colonial community, who lived in Somalia until 1960, display nostalgia toward the city of Mogadishu through their feelings of nostalgic longing for a pre-war enchanted city. In the case of Mogadishu, the concept of “ruins” extends beyond the aftermath of the civil war, encompassing what Stoler refers to as the lasting effects of colonialism – both in terms of the architectural legacy from that period and the enduring social, psychological, and cultural consequences that continue to shape the city. The digital restoration carried out is as much resurrecting an urban public memory of Mogadishu as it is shifting that urban public memory into the visualization of transformation and post-conflict reconstruction.
