The Memorialization of Class in Industrial Heritage Initiatives

Abstract

The memorialization of industries following deindustrialization has become commonplace. As Stanton observes in her review of the history of such memorialization, the conventions of considering industrial heritage tend to reflect ‘solidly middle-class visions’ often in the interests of supporting neoliberal economies . The gentrification of industrial and working-class neighbourhoods has been facilitated by the conservation and repurposing of industrial buildings, working, as Coffee argues, to redefine the rights of working-class people to inner cities. The devastating economic and social impact of deindustrialization is often reinforced as working communities become physically or emotionally displaced from their intangible and material heritage. The importance of heritage projects ‘from below’ and their consequence for community solidarity, wellbeing and self-esteem are well documented in the heritage literature. They are seen as attempts to reassert community pride as a response to economic marginalization and national historical forgetting. The focus of this chapter, however, is to examine how visitors interact with exhibitions and displays of working-class memorialization and to understand the memory and identity work that they do and how this is informed by issues of class.