This research seeks to understand if memorials like the CWM operate as effective prompts for collective memory as distance from the event it commemorates grows. The Citizens’ War Memorial (CWM) was built to honour the men and women who died serving New Zealand in World War One. While the original purpose of the memorial was clear, the way the public have interacted with the memorial throughout time has seen its function vary. This dissertation addresses how the public has viewed and interacted with the CWM from the planning phase up to the present year of 2025. By systematically tracking the key events through time, it argues that key events such as WWII, the Anti-Vietnam War protest period, the Anzac Revival and Canterbury 2011 earthquake have seen the public use and view the memorial differently to its intended purpose. In the current day, the memorial is once again used as a place to remember and honour the dead from WWI showing that purpose of a memorial can ebb and flow as generations change.
Post-earthquake cordons have been used after seismic events around the world. However, there is limited understanding of cordons and how contextual information of place such as geography, socio-cultural characteristics, economy, institutional and governance structure etc. affect decisions, operational procedures as well as spatial and temporal attributes of cordon establishment. This research aims to fill that gap through a qualitative comparative case study of two cities: Christchurch, New Zealand (Mw 6.2 earthquake, February 2011) and L’Aquila, Italy (Mw 6.3 earthquake, 2009). Both cities suffered comprehensive damage to its city centre and had cordons established for extended period. Data collection was done through purposive and snowball sampling methods whereby 23 key informants were interviewed in total. The interviewee varied in their roles and responsibilities i.e. council members, emergency managers, politicians, business/insurance representatives etc. We found that cordons were established to ensure safety of people and to maintain security of place in both the sites. In both cities, the extended cordon was met with resistance and protests. The extent and duration of establishment of cordon was affected by recovery approach taken in the two cities i.e. in Christchurch demolition was widely done to support recovery allowing for faster removal of cordons where as in L’Aquila, due to its historical importance, the approach to recovery was based on saving all the buildings which extended the duration of cordon. Thus, cordons are affected by site specific needs. It should be removed as soon as practicable which could be made easier with preplanning of cordons.
