ABSTRACT
The second part of the book focuses specifically on public spaces as sites of cultural encounters. It focuses on the contests and conflicts of belonging connected to specific sites – of heritage, memory, and everyday use – that emerge from diverse cultural encounters with, at, or linked to these sites. Collective processes of engagement with previously hidden, silenced, unwanted, or even undesirable forms of belonging are drawn out, positioning them in relation to narratives of belonging that previously dominated due to institutionalized structures and mechanisms of power dynamics. The different chapters look at how heritage sites, museums, and statues become sites in which diverse notions of belonging intersect. These encounters often result from the presence of socio-historical legacies that are considered contested and/or marginalized within Europe, such as the socialist and colonial past. Moreover, many emerge at sites positioned on “fault lines” within contemporary heritage, memory, and museum practices, and are strongly affected by the power dynamics at play in and around them. The chapters here show that such encounters often lead to a (re)politicization of – hidden or silenced – belonging, particularly when the right to belong or to participate is questioned and encounters with difference are suppressed.
