Sociological Review article on feminist heritage in London and Paris published by AIC research team

A new article from the Archiving the Inner City project has been published in The Sociological Review. The title is: ‘Feminisms, women’s histories and heritage in ‘inner city’ London and Paris’.  The article is authored by Miranda Armstrong, Ayshka Sené, Gareth Millington and Aurélien Mokoko Gampiot.

Here is the abstract:

Despite being stigmatised and racialised during the latter half of the twentieth century, the ‘inner
city’ in London and quartier populaire in Paris also became known for resistance, conviviality
and possibility. These aspects are now being remembered in varied public forms, from murals
to museums, archives to monuments. This article has two aims. First, to outline examples of
curatorial activism and the heritagisation of feminism/s and women’s histories in Brixton, London
and la Goutte d’Or, Paris, using qualitative data. Second, to compare and critically analyse how
these examples differently contribute to feminist praxis and a more democratic, egalitarian public
culture in cities. Our argument is that the inner city is becoming an important site for curatorial
activism and the heritagisation of black and Maghrebi women’s histories and intersectional
feminisms. Whilst these interventions expand the urban public sphere and constitute a claim
to narrate and represent the history of the city, they are also entangled with ambivalences of
control related to governance, culture-led urban regeneration, location and permanence. As
such, we identify a plurality of heritage gazes, ranging from those that are true to the curatorial
activism of feminists; to a gaze premised upon a more general valorisation of the authenticity of
the inner city; from heritage gazes that promote diversity but not racial identities and/or politics;
to communities who refute the very proposition of Western metropolitan heritage.

You can access the article here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00380261251353354

However, if the link doesn’t work for you and/or if you’d like to receive a pdf copy please email gareth.millington@york.ac.uk