posted on 2013-10-21, 12:00authored bySimon Gunn, Colin Hyde
Later twentieth-century Britain experienced two fundamental historical shifts: the collapse of manufacturing industry and the emergence of a multicultural society. Taking the city of Leicester as a case-study, this article explores the interconnected histories of these two processes. In the 1970s and 1980s Leicester witnessed simultaneously the sharp contraction of its manufacturing base and the creation of a large, permanent Asian community. While Leicester’s manufacturing economy and industrial neighbourhoods provided both employment and places of settlement for migrant Asian populations, these populations in turn helped to mitigate the effects of rapid industrial collapse. What the example of Leicester graphically shows is how global historical processes played out in unanticipated ways in a particular urban locale.
History
Citation
International Journal of Regional and Local History, 2013, 8 (2), pp. 94-111
Author affiliation
/Organisation/COLLEGE OF ARTS, HUMANITIES AND LAW/School of History
Version
AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Published in
International Journal of Regional and Local History