Monument Debate Ontology

INTRODUCTION

Public monuments and statues have long been powerful symbols of collective memory, identity, and heritage. As such, they also constitute focal points of debate, conflict, and reinterpretation in our society. Statues of political leaders, cultural figures, and historical actors often embody not only achievements or moments of pride but also legacies of oppression, discrimination, or controversy.

The project Monument Debate Ontology (MDO) is designed to capture and represent the complex discussions around controversial monuments in the contemporary society. Its central aim is to understand the phenomenon of cancel culture by building an ontology in order to describe and analyze how controversial monuments are viewed nowadays from different perspectives, considering social, ethical, and political arguments that arise around their presence, preservation, or removal.

In particular, our ontology acknowledges the following dual perspectives:

Those who advocate for removal or alteration: arguing that certain monuments glorify oppression, colonialism, racism, or other harmful legacies, and therefore perpetuate social harm in public spaces.
Those who advocate for preservation: emphasizing the statues’ cultural, artistic, or historical value, and maintaining that they represent not only negative aspects of the past but also broader contexts that should not be erased and that are still relevant for the society.

The project

This Gitbook contains the documentation for the final project of the course "Knowledge Representation and Knowledge Extraction" held by prof. Aldo Gangemi, in a.y. 2023/2024 within the Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge Master's Degree at Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna.