REALISING THE CITY
Urban ethnography in Manchester
edited by
Camilla Lewis and Jessica Symons
With contributions from Michael Atkins, Hannah Knox, Luciana Lang, Camilla Lewis, Damian ODoherty, Elisa Pieri, George Poulton, Katherine Smith and Jessica Symons
and
Foreword by Kevin Ward
Manchester University Press
Copyright Manchester University Press 2018
While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher.
Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 5261 0073 3 hardback
First published 2018
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Typeset by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
With thanks to the people of Manchester
For sharing their lives and insights with us.
CONTENTS
Introduction: tackling the urban through ethnography
Camilla Lewis and Jessica Symons
Inclusion without incorporation: re-imagining Manchester through a new politics of environment
Hannah Knox
Nurturing an emergent city: parade making as a cultural trope for urban policy
Jessica Symons
Lounge Manchester: the new politics of loungification
Damian ODoherty
Under the surface of the village: public and private negotiations of urban space in Manchester
Michael Atkins
Making and enabling the commons: shared urban spaces and civic engagement in North Manchester
Luciana Lang
Urban futures and competing trajectories for Manchester city centre
Elisa Pieri
7 Urban transformation in football: from Manchester United as a global leisure brand to FC United as a community club
George Poulton
8 People want jobs, they want a life! Deindustrialisation and loss in East Manchester
Camilla Lewis
9 Dont call the police on me, I wont call them on you: self-policing as ethical development in North Manchester
Katherine Smith
Afterword: the tension in making and realising a city
Jessica Symons
About the editors
Camilla Lewis is Research Associate in Sociology at the University of Manchester, working on a project about place and belonging. Her research focuses on urban regeneration, community, social change and class. In 2014 she completed a PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester, in which she conducted an ethnographic study in East Manchester. Since then she has worked as a Research Associate in CRESC (Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change) carrying out research on Big Data and Urban Waste Management and on the Step Change project looking at travel, transport and mobility.
Jessica Symons is an urban anthropologist and Research Grant Writer at the University of Manchester. Her research explores culture, creativity, digital and the urban. She is currently focused on the processes through which imagined worlds are materialised and these effects on urban settings. As Research Fellow in the UPRISE Research Centre at the University of Salford, she worked on an AHRC Connected Community Project, Cultural Intermediation, focused on cultural activities in Ordsall, Salford. Her doctoral research followed the making of a civic parade in Manchester. Jessica also worked in the private sector for 20 years as IT consultant, business analyst and community project manager.
About the authors
Michael Atkins is an anthropologist and artist based in Manchester. His work involves using combinations of writing, drawing and performance as forms of storytelling, documentary and expression.
Hannah Knox is Senior Lecturer in Digital Anthropology and Material Culture at University College London. Her work explores the relationship between technology and the imagination, cultural creativity and material contingency, the politics of transformation and the challenge of rupture, crisis and the new. She has explored these issues through ethnographic research in the UK, Peru and Europe and has written about how culture permeates, shapes and is transformed by information systems, digital models, roads, energy infrastructure, carbon, and climate change. Recent publications include Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise (Cornell University Press, 2015) and Ethnography for a Data Saturated World (forthcoming).
Luciana Lang is a researcher working in the broad area of socio-ecological anthropology in urban contexts. Her doctoral research explored the relationship between an urban fishing community and a mangrove swamp in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This dialogue between urban communities, the environment and policies continues to shape her research. Luciana is particularly interested in human-disturbed environments, in homespun alternatives to cope with socio-economic effects of increasingly precarious scenarios, and in the use and management of the commons.
Damian ODoherty is Senior Lecturer in Organisation Analysis at the Alliance Manchester Business School. He has recently published his ethnography of the Manchester Airport Group, Reconstructing Organisation: The Loungification of Society (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
Elisa Pieri is Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. Her work explores securitisation and its impact on urban stakeholders. Her current research (Simon Fellowship, 20162019) investigates how Western cities securitise against the risk of global pandemics and the social implications that arise from pandemic preparedness protocols, technologies and practices. Elisa has worked on several interdisciplinary research projects, investigating controversial issues in policy, science and technology debates. She has published on security, urban sociology, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and on ethical, legal and social aspects of new technologies such as genomics and biometrics.
George Poulton is Senior Research Officer at the Department for Education. In 2013 he completed a PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. His research was an ethnographic study of FC United of Manchester and explored the themes of community and politics as they played out amongst football supporters.
Katherine Smith is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. She has carried out ethnographic fieldwork in the North of England exploring issues of fairness and (in)equalities, social class, nationalisms, political correctness, political participation, race and ethnicity, belonging and humorous banter. She is author of Fairness, Class and Belonging in Contemporary England (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and co-editor of Extraordinary Encounters: Authenticity and the Interview (Berghahn Books, 2015).
Kevin Ward is a Professor of Human Geography and Director of the Manchester Urban Institute at the University of Manchester and a Visiting Professor at The City Institute, York University. His current work involves rethinking what is meant by the urban in urban politics, as elements of different places are assembled and reassembled to constitute particular urban political realms. Kevin has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters, and his books include the co-authored volumes
