Negotiating Danish identity with(in) Copenhagen's postcolonial landscape of commemoration

Abstract

The paper investigates changes to Copenhagen's landscape of commemoration concerning its former colony, the Danish West Indies (DWI), prompted by the 2017 centennial anniversary of the Islands' sale to the US. It argues that Denmark, like other European nations, navigates a postcolonial identity crisis and that the landscape of commemoration plays a significant role within it. The paper advances our understanding of postcolonial Europe's identity crisis not only by shedding light on the under-explored case of Denmark, but also by emphasizing the role of the landscape of commemoration in this crisis. In addition to demonstrating how landscapes function as ‘arenas’ for negotiating expressions of hegemonic identity and territorial claims, it argues that the commemorative landscape is pivotal in tackling the construction of ‘Europe’ as a detached, self-made entity rather than a space (re)produced through connections with other (ed) places and people. It underscores that Europe's allegedly monochromatic historical fabric is woven from diverse global threads. Re-membering Europe with the people and regions vital to its (re)production re-writes them into European history and re-locates detached Europe (with)in the world.