Within this essay, I will discuss the conflict between Museum of London Docklands’s efforts to conserve the past and Canary Wharf’s efforts to progress economically. I will use supplementary sources from various authors to aid in the discussion. I conclude that it is precisely the conflict between the two areas, one past oriented, the other present and future oriented, that helps constitute what kind of ‘place’ the London Docklands is. The concept of how to preserve the past while still allowing the development of the present and future is not by any means a new one, but nevertheless, the concept is extremely consequential. A particularly difficult past to conserve is that of the London Docklands, specifically its use to store sugar produced
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1 of the West Indies port, just a bridge walk away from the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. Although the Museum is adjacent to Canary Wharf, the two areas have drastically different roles and intentions. In his essay, Making the London, Sugar and Slavery Gallery at the Museum of London Docklands, David Spence explains the motivation for the creation of the Museum and its persistence to work with community, specifically those of African-Caribbean heritage whose families were impacted by the slave trade. Spence highlights that the Museum aims to display the harsh reality of Britain’s involvement with the slave trade while also delivering “the voices of those who passionately wanted to be heard” …show more content…
However, the antithesis seems to be surrounding it— Canary Wharf, a massive private business enterprise namely concerned with economic prosperity. In the end, what can we make of this ‘place’ known as the Docklands? In her work, Global Sense of Place, Doreen Massey addresses the issue of defining ‘place,’ specifically in regards to the characteristics that comprise a place. She stresses that “the specificity of place is continually reproduced, but it is not a specificity which result from some long, internalized history, there are a number of sources of this specificity— the uniqueness of place” (“A Global” 8). Essentially, places are not comprised of a single identity, but rather, a place is the physical manifestation of multiple identities. Additionally, she warns against an “internalized history” perspective, which refrains from analyzing the global relationships of a ‘place.’ Massey also emphasizes in a separate work on places that it is precisely this “long history of interconnectedness with elsewhere (the history of the global construction of the local)” that helps define a ‘place’ (“Places” 183). Massey acknowledges the importance of history in defining a ‘place,’ but rather than a single perspective of history, she encourages various outlooks, specifically regarding global connections,
1 of the West Indies port, just a bridge walk away from the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. Although the Museum is adjacent to Canary Wharf, the two areas have drastically different roles and intentions. In his essay, Making the London, Sugar and Slavery Gallery at the Museum of London Docklands, David Spence explains the motivation for the creation of the Museum and its persistence to work with community, specifically those of African-Caribbean heritage whose families were impacted by the slave trade. Spence highlights that the Museum aims to display the harsh reality of Britain’s involvement with the slave trade while also delivering “the voices of those who passionately wanted to be heard” …show more content…
However, the antithesis seems to be surrounding it— Canary Wharf, a massive private business enterprise namely concerned with economic prosperity. In the end, what can we make of this ‘place’ known as the Docklands? In her work, Global Sense of Place, Doreen Massey addresses the issue of defining ‘place,’ specifically in regards to the characteristics that comprise a place. She stresses that “the specificity of place is continually reproduced, but it is not a specificity which result from some long, internalized history, there are a number of sources of this specificity— the uniqueness of place” (“A Global” 8). Essentially, places are not comprised of a single identity, but rather, a place is the physical manifestation of multiple identities. Additionally, she warns against an “internalized history” perspective, which refrains from analyzing the global relationships of a ‘place.’ Massey also emphasizes in a separate work on places that it is precisely this “long history of interconnectedness with elsewhere (the history of the global construction of the local)” that helps define a ‘place’ (“Places” 183). Massey acknowledges the importance of history in defining a ‘place,’ but rather than a single perspective of history, she encourages various outlooks, specifically regarding global connections,