adorning the stairs leading up to the museum of natural history is a monument of theodore roosevelt on a horse. two ‘primitives’ walk alongside with an arm clinging to good ol’ papa teddy for support and security as the three graciously head into the uncertainties of an unknown destination. this myth of international harmony and cooperation obscures the imperial violences of us folded into the monroe doctrine. a museum dedicated to ‘natural history’ becomes an appropriate site for erecting a monument to manifest destiny.
the city, then, must be conceived as a locus in which history itself is created and memorialized in support of particular narratives of domination. consequently, one must attend to the practices of domination within the historicisms of urban material realities and materialities.
