The Dictionary of Human Geography

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and welfare gains, rather than narrow financial

advantage (Williams, 1996; Williams,

Aldridge, Lee, Leyshon, Thrift and Tooke,

2001; Maurer, 2003). al

monuments Built icons of identity usually

in the form of public statues or symbolic build-

ings that are designed and executed to evoke a

sense of national and regionalidentity, and to

induce in the collective imagination remem-

brance of specific events or people. Although

the study of monuments has increased in

human geographyover the past 20 years, a

result of a heightened interest in the symbolic,

ritualistic and performative dimensions of

identity formation, historians were the first to

explore the relationships between public

monuments and nationalism. Mosse’s

(1975) study of the role of the public statue

in the development of German nationalism is

still an exemplary analysis, while Schorske’s

(1979) discussion of the redevelopment of

Vienna’sRingstrassein the nineteenth century

provides a brilliant interpretation of the role of

Austria’s rising middle class in impressing

their political vision on the architecture of the

city.

There are several reasons for studying the

links between monuments and political–

cultural identities. First, the erection of public

monuments inpublic spacehas proliferated

since the nineteenth century, and this expan-

sion of public statuary corresponds with the

heyday of nation-building projects. Second,

unlike other arts such as painting orlitera-

ture, monument-making is usually a collect-

ive process ‘more democratic than painting

because it is simpler and more solemn, more

appropriate to the public square, to huge di-

mensions, and to emblematic figures that are

both a product of, and stimulus to the imagin-

ation’ (Agulhon, 1981, p. 4). Third, the rituals

surrounding the unveiling of monuments and

the dynamics of their reception and consump-

tion help us to identify their role in the public

consciousness. Icons in bronze or stone are

made meaningful by the ways in which they

visuallyandverballyinvokeparticularversionsof

identity. Finally, thespatialityof public statu-

ary is important in the constitution of meaning

and it is here that geography has a particular

contribution to make (see alsomemory).

A seminal geographical study of a monu-

ment is Harvey’s (1979) analysis of theBasil-

ica de Sacre ́Coeurin Paris and its role in the

development of class politics in the capital.

Subsequent studies have pursued several

different themes. Studies of the role ofwar

monuments in articulating national and sec-

tional commemoration range from extensive

surveys of memorials to the two world wars

(Heffernan, 1995; Johnson, 2003b) to in-

depth studies of individual statues (Till,

1999). These analyses pay close attention to

the iconographic debates surrounding the use

of particular motifs (seeiconography) and to

the conflicts over identity engendered by

them. The spatiality of commemorative sites

has been another focus: Leib’s (2002) analysis

of the Arthur Ashe statue in Richmond,

Virginia, for example, highlights the role of

placeandracein the public discussion of

the location of the monument, while Benton-

Short (2006) recovers the politics of location

that animated recent discussions of monume-

nts and memorials on the Mall in Washington,

DC. All of these studies focus on the visual

and verbal languages surrounding public

monuments, but more recently human geog-

raphers have started to address theperforma-

tivedimension by examining the textual and

non-textual, bodily and non-bodily practices

involved in the making of public icons (e.g.

Howe, 2008). nj

Suggested reading

Leib (2002); Till (1999).

moral geographies The study of the inter-

relationship of moral and geographical argu-

ments. Work has considered the way in which

assumptions about the relationship between

people and their environments may reflect

and produce moral judgements, and how the

conduct of particular groups or individuals in

particular spaces may be judged appropriate

or inappropriate. D.M. Smith (1998a) sees

moral geographies as one of six research

areas linking geography and moralphiloso-

phy, alongside the historical geography of

moralities, inclusion and exclusion in bounded

spaces, the moral significance of distance and

proximity, questions ofsocial justiceand en-

vironmentalethics. Smith extends his discus-

sion in Moral geographies(2000a), a wide-

ranging treatment of geography, morality,

ethics and justice (see also moral

landscapes).

The term ‘moral geographies’ achieved pro-

minen within human geography through

Driver’s study of allied ‘environmentalism’

and ‘moralism’ in nineteenth-century social sci-

entific urban studies: ‘‘‘Moral science’’ was...

a science of conduct and its relationship to en-

vironment, both moral and physical’ (Driver,

1988, p. 279). Driver argues that such moral

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MONUMENTS