The renaming of places and building of heritage sites in post-apartheid SA seems to point to a new ways of ordering and shaping public memory. However, which parts of the past do we want to retain and which discard? And do these changes help the nation-building project?

The debates sparked by the renaming of the city of Port Elizabeth to Gqeberha — the name of a river running through the city —  are increasingly gaining traction across the political and racial divide.