The special subject, 'Memorialisation, Slavery and Colonialism' will investigate how histories of slavery, colonialism, and resistance are remembered, represented, contested, and silenced across contemporary Europe. Slavery and colonialism were transnational and trans-European processes. Yet contemporary practices of memory and memorialisation continue to be studied largely within national frameworks. This paper seeks to address that gap by adopting a comparative and transnational approach that examines how different European societies engage with the legacies of slavery and colonialism in their public spaces and cultural institutions, and how these engagements shape collective memory and national narratives.

Through a series of case studies focusing on key European port cities in the UK, France, Italy and Portugal, the paper examines museums, memorials, monuments, archives, and galleries to explore how histories of slavery and colonialism are narrated, interpreted, and made visible within contemporary urban environments. The selected cities were major nodes within European maritime, commercial, imperial, and slave-trading networks and have become important sites of contemporary debate regarding colonial memory, public monuments, and historical accountability. Together they provide a comparative framework through which to analyse differing national and local approaches to remembering, forgetting, and reinterpreting histories of slavery and colonialism.

The paper will furthermore explore the politics of absence and silence within cultures of memory. Alongside analysing existing forms of memorialisation, we are interested in identifying what remains unacknowledged or marginalised. Questions of omission, erasure, and selective remembrance are central to understanding how European societies continue to negotiate difficult histories and their contemporary implications. By bringing together case studies from the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Portugal, the paper will identify both common patterns and significant differences in how colonial pasts are remembered, contested, and reimagined. This approach reflects the interconnected nature of European colonial histories themselves and opens new avenues for comparative analysis.