The University of East London's CMRB (Centre for research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging) is pleased to announce the following seminar:
Re-Living the Dream? Reinventing East London for the Post-Olympic Legacy
Prof. Phil Cohen
This seminar will take place in US 2.38, University Square Stratford, University of East London, 1 Salway Road, London E15 1NF
http://www.universitysquarestratford.ac.uk/find-us.htm
Monday 30th March 2015, 4–6pm
In order to access the room in University Square Stratford it is essential to register at:
relivingthedream.eventbrite.co.uk
Abstract: 2012 was billed as the 'legacy games'. It was supposed to 'inspire a generation' to greater things on and off the track. It was supposed to create a level playing field in which the life chances of young people growing up in the most deprived parts of East London were to converge with those born into more affluent circumstances in other parts of the city. How far are these material dreams realisable and to what extent do they connect with the actual aspirations of different communities in East London? How are the utopian and commercial dimensions of the Olympic project rhetorically reconciled and how do they come into conflict in the actual strategies of urban regeneration the mega event sets in motion? What kind of economies of worth should be applied to evaluating the success or failure of 2012? Finally, how is the Olympic Legacy narrative being enacted on the ground, in the development plans for the Olympic park and how are those living in this new piece of city actually making sense of the place? To examine these questions concretely I will drawn on my current ethno-cartographic research with residents groups in East Village.
Prof. Phil Cohen is the author of 'On the Wrong Side of the Track: East London and the Post Olympics' published by Lawrence and Wishart in 2013. He is currently co-editing a collection of 2012 legacy studies to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016. He is the research director of Living Maps, a network of academics, artists and activists concerned to develop a creative and critical approach to the social mapping of the city and is currently carrying out a number of mapping projects with communities in and around the Olympic Park .
He is a visiting professor at the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Birkbeck College, a research fellow of the Young Foundation and an Emeritus at UEL where he is a research associate of the London East Research Institute.
For more info on CMRB: uel.ac.uk/cmrb
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