Time and symbols in the contentious city

Abstract

The morphology of the urban habitat displays the outcomes of agonistic, competing interests. Often, conflicts focus on the symbols that in the city eulogise the prevailing groups and celebrate their achievements. Modifying the urban morphology, therefore, is among the ways ruling groups and their achievements can be contested, with the subaltern attacking signs, symbols and images that remind them of their subordination. This paper looks at mythic (or systemic) violence, and at signs and symbols embedded in the city, it then refers to the defacement and toppling of monuments (discussed in City, Volume 24, Numbers 3–4, June-August 2020) and concludes with an analysis of such recent actions as contentions around social time, struggles over memory and temporality.