Beyond Derry or Londonderry: Towards a framework for understanding the emerging spatial contradictions of Derry–Londonderry—UK City of Culture 2013

Abstract

Those tasked with Derry's governance are currently engaged in an attempt at reordering perceptions and understandings of that city as an archetypal contested/divided city. A key strategy employed to this end is the rebranding of the city, which has coalesced around Derry–Londonderry's designation as the inaugural UK City of Culture (2013). This paper explores how rather than assessing this re-imagination through the totalising frameworks of success or failure, the idea of the city as constituted by competing and contradictory narratives proves more useful for accessing some of the nuances, which have characterised the regeneration process.