Research project
Heritages and Utopias: Possibility Thinking for Living Together
- Start date: 1 January 2016
- End date: 1 January 2017
- Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
- Primary investigator: Dr Helen Graham
- Co-investigators: Dr Liz Stainforth
Description
Drawing upon the idea of utopia allows the exploration of an imagined, different world, while highlighting the limitations of the present. The Heritages and Utopias project focuses on engaging with utopia in order to explore how we might collectively desire differently in relation to practices of community heritage and local democracy.
In particular, the project explores how collaboratively produced histories can be used to create a space of critical engagement and possibility thinking, in the hope that more people become involved in local decision-making. The project encompasses a range of temporal perspectives; from thinking about housing plans that didn’t happen to inviting ideas for the future development of the city. The critical and transformative aspects of this approach make it a properly utopian form of inquiry, opening up conversations and ways of thinking otherwise about York’s future.
Contact
More information
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Image credit: Richard Brigham York Past and Present