ILLUSTRATION TABLE

Research Framework

Project Thematics

The project has been developed through a focus on a group of thematics framesin order to trace and imagine living heritage:

IDENTITY & LIVELIHOODS This theme looks at the politics of identity and the relations that people forge with place while continuously shaping the urban environment inhabiting.

Fig 3. Identity & Livelihoods (Image Source; DPU & Gut Level) Fig 5. Community Connectedness & Collectivism (Image Source; DPU & Gut Level)

SOLIDARITY & SYSTEMS OF CARE This theme looks at survival strategies that weaves the individual, social and political body and which understanding cannot be detached from structural inequity.

COMMUNITY CONNECTEDNESS & COLLECTIVISM This theme looks at the role of collectivism in the production, mobilisation and reproduction of knowledge and practices of traditionally marginalised communities and individuals.

TRANS-LOCAL (HIS)TORIES & MEMORY This theme looks at the role of trans-local (his)stories in the production, recognition, experience and transformation of spaces in diasporic geographies and DYI cultures.

Site of Engagement

The Steel City

Sheffield, also named the ‘Steel City’, has been historically rooted to its industrial development. The city played a crucial role during the Industrial Revolution by gaining international reputation for metallurgy and steel making, becoming thus the country’s industrial powerhouse during the 18th Century. After remaining active until the early 70’s, Sheffield’s fortune altered drastically because of the 1970’s economic crisis because of the inflation and increasing competition, hampering the steel making and metallurgy industry of the city.

Given the unsuitable land for industrial developments on the urban edges, most of the industries were settled on the eastern part of the city. After the economic decline suffered in the mid twenties, the remaining exindustrial areas have struggled to overcome such a crisis, remaining thus, deprived in terms of income and health compared to the “historically wealthier and cleaner west” (Mears, M, et al., 2019). Such strong west-east gradient in deprivation is very much present in the nowadays configuration of the city, and it traces the contours of a complex landscape from both sides of the economic dividing line halves (Taylor, 2019).

Fig 8. Map of Sheffield (Image Source: Mapbox/Google Maps)

Post Industrial City

After several decades of decline, Sheffield has experienced a strong revival of its economy, being considered as one of the fastest growing cities outside London. Enormous strides have been made lately in Sheffield to strengthen its social fabric, improve health systems and revitalise its urban areas. I

Even though the balance between less deprived and more deprived areas in Sheffield seems ‘more equal’ regarding other cities in the UK, there is a clear geographical barrier running north-west to south-east throughout the city (Fairness Sheffield Commission, 2012). Some areas in the south and west of the city lay as the 20% least deprived of the country, while more than 30% of Sheffield’s population lives in the 20% most deprived areas in the UK, spread through the north-east of the city. As a result, such differentiation reinforces inequalities between different areas and groups of people.