This paper introduces a virtual special issue that explores how monuments have been contested in the past and how they continue to be so in the present. A survey of papers published in this journal from the 1990s to the early-2000s demonstrates an ongoing and rich interest in the interconnections between nationalism, landscape and ritual, with some emphasis on resistance but little sense of the contemporary lives of these historic monuments. Broader geographical scholarship in the mid-2000s evidenced the memory boom that was taking place across the discipline, beyond historical geography. A second survey of papers in this journal, published from 2012 to 2021, evidences a richer engagement with post-colonial, post-Soviet and post-slavery periods and perspectives, and with a broader range of sites beyond Europe and North America. More recent scholarship has focused on participatory geography, calls for statues to fall, and for more experimental, non-representational methods. This introduction concludes by summarising the papers in this special issue and reflecting on the relationships between monuments and contestation that they create, namely: monuments to contestation; the historic contestation of monuments; and the ongoing contestation of monuments as heritage spaces (attacks and felling, retaining and explaining, re-using, creating counter-monuments, artistically re-symbolising and re-imagining monuments, and contestatory scholarship).

中文翻译：

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争议纪念碑：不平等的遗产和历史地理学，简介


本文介绍了一期虚拟特刊，探讨了纪念碑在过去是如何受到争议的，以及现在如何继续如此。对 1990 年代至 2000 年代初发表在该杂志上的论文的调查表明，人们对民族主义、景观和仪式之间的相互联系产生了持续而浓厚的兴趣，其中一些强调抵抗，但对这些历史古迹的当代生活知之甚少。2000 年代中期更广泛的地理学研究证明了整个学科发生的记忆热潮，超越了历史地理学。该杂志于 2012 年至 2021 年发表的第二次论文调查证明，对后殖民、后苏联和后奴隶制时期和观点的参与更加丰富，并且与欧洲和北美以外的更广泛的地点进行了更丰富的互动。最近的学术研究集中在参与式地理学、呼吁雕像倒塌以及更多实验性的、非具象的方法。本序言最后总结了本期特刊中的论文，并反思了纪念碑与它们所创造的争论之间的关系，即：争论的纪念碑;纪念碑的历史性争夺;以及作为遗产空间的纪念碑的持续争论（攻击和砍伐、保留和解释、再利用、创建反纪念碑、艺术上重新象征和重新想象纪念碑，以及竞争性学术研究）。