This thesis examines how migrant and marginalised communities in York engage with both the dominant heritage narratives preserved and projected by the city, and their own diverse cultural heritage. While York is often perceived as a provincial city with a homogenous population, it has, since the post-war period, been home to a rich and diverse range of migrant and refugee communities whose histories remain largely excluded from the city’s heritage discourse.
The thesis traces how York’s civic institutions – particularly the York Civic Trust – consciously shaped the city’s identity as a centre of heritage. In the wake of industrial decline, York’s historic built environment was repurposed as a cultural asset, through June Hargreaves’s innovative approach of protecting conservation areas and framed by paternalistic Quaker ideals of urban planning towards social reform. These efforts positioned York as a leader in the heritage industry by constructing a selective, exclusionary narrative.
Against this backdrop, this thesis analyzes how post-war migrant and refugee communities experience and navigate this authorised heritage landscape. It investigates the challenges of forging belonging in a city whose spatial and symbolic architecture often marginalises non-dominant identities.
Methodologically, this research adopts an innovative, interdisciplinary approach, combining archival analysis with oral history and ethnographic fieldwork. It contributes to urban history, conservation studies, and migration research by examining the politics of heritage, the production of urban space, and the ways in which marginalised groups contest, reinterpret, and contribute to the city’s evolving cultural narrative. While grounded in York, the findings have broader implications for understanding how other British cities are similarly shaped by selective heritage narratives rooted in traditional, often exclusionary, frameworks. This study underscores the importance of recognising migrant and refugee communities as integral to the nation’s heritage discourse and calls for more inclusive practices in heritage interpretation and urban cultural policy.
