Turning houses into homes: Living through urban regeneration in East Manchester

Abstract

Repeated studies of urban regeneration have focused on the displacement of working class residents, but those who remain living in sites of urban change have received less attention. To attend to this gap, this paper focuses on the lives of long-standing residents in East Manchester, a site of urban regeneration, and examines their views of urban change. Ethnographic research reveals how the demolition and rebuilding of new houses has resulted in a deep sense of uncertainty. Drawing on anthropological theories of materiality, the analysis makes an original contribution to debates about urban regeneration, showing how social and material relations have been reconfigured and arguing that this in turn has created new meanings about the home.