| dc.description.abstract | Examining the significance of statues as consisting of both material and immaterial components through the case of the Samora Machel monuments in Mozambique, this thesis explores the information embedded in the Samora Machel monuments and how this information can open for discussions on peace processes. Approaching this objective, the thesis is based on a theoretical framework combining the concepts of memory, memoryscapes, and spatial peace. Using a social constructivist approach to memories, peace, and the spaces they exist in, their characterization is understood as a result of continuous power relations between different actors, resulting in their outcomes being context-specific and differentiating across time and space. Examining the case in light of this theoretical framework, the thesis explores the information embedded in the Samora Machel monuments through the historic use of memory, including the memory selection that has occurred and who has had the ability to impact it, in regards to Mozambique’s recent peace and conflict history. Continuingly, the memory selection of the past is examined in connection to the events leading up to the construction of the Samora Machel monuments, examining what memories the act of building them expresses. Being aware of how the significance of statues are context-specific and differentiating across time and space, in what ways the symbolic value of the monuments has changed after their building will be examined. Examining this will lead to a discussion on how the building of them was an act of changing the representation of space and how recognizing this act and investigating how people react to this change can open for discussing why the existing peace and the memories the building of the monuments where an expression of is unable to create a lasting peace. | eng |