Editorial: Working-class heritage and the city

Abstract

Abstract Here, we introduce a series of concepts and debates that provide a meta-context for the papers on the topic of working-class heritage and the city that follow. We propose Henri Lefebvre's seminal work on the dissolution of the city as a theoretical framing device via brief detours through notions of museification, authenticity and 'communicity'. The fundamental problematic, as we see it, is that urban working-class heritage is symptomatic of the dissolution of the industrial city and an attempt ‐ conditioned by economic, social, cultural and political imperatives ‐ to reimagine and/or reconfigure the legacies of this city. While we agree that heritage is an active process ‐ it is selected, curated, narrated and interpreted, or 'decoded' by individuals and social groups in a reflexive manner ‐ we also suggest, on the evidence of the papers collected here, that working-class heritage delivers an ambivalent experience and response.