Public History Discussion Group
Institute of Archaeology, University College London WC1H 0PY
Saturday 7 May
11 am (coffee) Rm 609, seminar 11:30-1 Rm 612
‘Setting the record straight’: housing politics and the archive
Elena Carter, Archivist, Tavistock Institute
“Just because it's knocked down, doesn't mean it's dead. Heygate [Estate]
lives in the sense of what it was: a complete scandal, social cleansing,
gentrification, disrespect, death —people died from that— displacement, so
that's something we're thinking about when we archive.”
Image credit: 56a infoshop
Focusing on recent regeneration programmes in South East
London, this talk will discuss the highly politicised motivations
behind community-based history-making endeavours by
exploring how housing activists create and use archival
resources to create a ‘useful past’. The talk will consider how
the autonomous space of the archive provides authority
and independence for community groups to construct and
define their own stories in order to set the record straight and
bear witness to changing city landscapes.