Heritage, Gentrification and Resistance in the Neoliberal City

What happens when versions of the past become silenced, suppressed, or privileged due to urban restructuring? In what ways are the interpretations and performances of 'the past' linked to urban gentrification, marginalization, displacement, and social responses? Authors explore a variety of attempts to interrupt and interrogate urban restructuring, and to imagine alternative forms of urban organization, produced by diverse coalitions of resisting groups and individuals. Armed with historical narratives, oral histories, objects, physical built environment, memorials, and intangible aspects of heritage that include traditions, local knowledge and experiences, memories, authors challenge the 'devaluation' of their neighborhoods in official heritage and development narratives.

Feras Hammami is associate professor of conservation, placed at the Department of Conservation, University of Gothenburg. His research concerns the politicization of cultural heritage within urban planning and development, with a specific interest in the purposeful practices of heritage.

Daniel Jewesbury is an artist and writer, and a senior lecturer in Fine Art at HDK-Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg. Daniel has been researching urban development across Europe for 20 years, through both his published writing and an art practice that encompasses film, photography, and performance.

Chiara Valli is a social and economic geographer currently employed as a project researcher at the department of Urban Studies, Malmö University. Chiara's research deals with housing, gentrification, housing financialization, socio-economic and ethnic urban segregation, displacement, social movements, and resistance, with empirical research in Sweden, Italy, and the US.