
On the Wrong Side of the Track?
East London and the Post Olympics
Phil Cohen(Author)
Lawrence & Wishart Ltd (Publisher)
Published on 12. April 2013
Book
Paperback/Softback
424 pages
978-1-907103-62-9 (ISBN)
Description
What did the 2012 Olympics tell us about who we are, who we were, and who we want to be? This book takes 2012 as a starting point for a debate on national identity, community cohesion, urban regeneration and the persistence of inequalities in British society - from the vantage point of East London not only as the main Olympic venue as but the main reason that Britain won its Olympic bid. The first half of the book looks at East London from the inside - including voices from East London communities and the Olympic Park workers - and from the outside - in the imagination of artists, social commentators and reformers. The second half examines the cultural strategies that were used to present an 'Olympian' vision of London to the world, and explores the rhetoric and reality of regeneration and legacy. On the Wrong Side of the Track is a counter-narrative centred on an area once described by a LOCOG official as a 'pretty terrible part of town', but whose residents now carry the burden of representing the nation's hopes of economic recovery; it challenges the arguments of Olympophiles for whom the Games can do no wrong as well as Olympophobes for whom they can do no right.
The book includes a photo essay on the Olympic site, and original photographs by Jason Orton and John Claridge.
The book includes a photo essay on the Olympic site, and original photographs by Jason Orton and John Claridge.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
594 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-907103-62-9 (9781907103629)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Phil Cohen grew up with Steve Ovett and Jean-Paul Sartre as his teenage heroes and has been trying to get them into the same book ever since. He is author of Knuckle Sandwich: Growing up in the working class city (with Dave Robins); Rethinking the Youth Question; London's Turning: The making of Thames Gateway (with Mike Rustin); and Borderscapes: memory, narrative and Un/Common Culture (to be published in 2013). His poetry has been published by Critical Quarterly, Agenda, Soundings and Kites. He is Emeritus Professor in Cultural Studies at the University of East London.
Content
Introduction: 'Everyone a winner' - Welcome to the Post Olympics Part I: East London then and now: an everyday story of 'race', class and imagined community 1. London goes East: the gothic imagination and the capital's 'other scene'. 2. All white down our way: portrait of a working-class community in crisis 3. Living the dream? Some scenes from 'Growing up East Enders' 4. From Canary Wharf to Stratford via Thurrock and Southend: London's eastward's turn and the making of Thames Gateway Part II: The 2012 Olympics: between the artificial paradise and the beautifying lie 5. London calling 2012: notes on the haunting of an Olympic story 6. Signs taken for wonders: the politics and poetics of staging a mega event 7. Bodyscapes: class, gender and 'race' in the fabrication of 2012 8. East 20: Towards a good enough legacy