‘Archiving the Inner City’ is the podcast where we discuss how, by whom and for what purposes the twentieth century ‘inner city’ is remembered, curated and represented. Archiving the Inner City is a five-year University of York project funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The project is international in scope and focuses on sites in London (Brixton), Paris (La Goutte d’Or / Château Rouge) and Philadelphia (the historic ‘Seventh Ward’). The project is led by Gareth Millington and the researchers are Miranda Armstrong, Aurélien Mokoko-Gampiot, Ayshka Sené, Irteza Anwara Mohyuddin, Sophie Rainbow and Austin Cooper.

In this first episode, we will hear more about the project from the research associates involved, as well as interview extracts from fieldwork sites in London, Paris and Philadelphia. Each location has a well-documented history of migration (postcolonial or rural-urban), black political activism, cultural creativity and entrepreneurship and latterly, gentrification. We question how these histories being made legible in the present and discuss the heritage and archiving practices which are happening in each location. Our research team was interviewed for this episode by Adassa McDonald Dixon, who held an ESRC Summer research experience placement at the University of York during the summer of 2022. This episode was scripted and hosted by Ayshka Sené.