Moving Manchester / Mediating Marginalities: How the experience of migration has informed the work of writers in Greater Manchester

Project start date: 2006-01

Project end date: 2009-12

Moving Manchester (formerly 'Mediating Marginalities') has spent the past four years (2006-2010) investigating the ways in which the experience of migration has impacted upon contemporary writing in the city and, by extension, the ways in which these multicultural publications and performances have impacted upon the urban population's view of itself as well as the wider perception of Manchester as a British city. To this end, the project team has worked closely with several Manchester-based writers' organisations and publishers such as Commonword, Gatehouse, The Black Arts Alliance, Comma Press, Manchester Irish Writers' group and sought to actively promote the work of the writers and organisations concerned. These twin commitments, of academic research on the one hand and literature development on the other, are reflected in the project's outputs which combine scholarly articles and books/ book chapters with an open-access electronic catalogue, an anthology of new writing (Migration Stories, 2009) and a web-based 'Writers Gallery' which features the work and profiles of some 30 Manchester-based writers. In addition, the project has sought to disseminate the findings of its research, together with the work of Manchester-based authors and writers' organisations themselves, through a number of exhibitions and events that have been aimed at the general public: in particular, a 'Creative Arts Day' (including exhibition) at the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester (12 September 2009) and the 'Writing Manchester' exhibition which was held at Manchester Central Library (7 September - 18 October 2009). We have also been able to use a number of our academic events (in particular, the Project's closing conference, 'Glocal Imaginaries' and the Whitworth 'Creative Arts Day') as occasions at which Manchester-based authors could perform and sell their work, and were supported by Arts Council England (North-West) in this enterprise. We estimate that between 50-60 Manchester-based authors will have directly benefited from our activities during the life-time of the project (in terms of paid-performances and additional publications), whilst many hundreds will benefit from the permanent legacy we have secured for their work through the creation of the electronic catalogue and 'Writers Gallery'. At present, the 'Moving Manchester e-catalogue' may be accessed through the Project website, but it will eventually be archived within Lancaster University's 'Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research' website with a direct link to Manchester Central Library. The cumulative achievement of the 'Moving Manchester' project may therefore be understood in terms of its far-reaching re-evaluation of Manchester's post-1960s literary scene, especially when placed in the context of the London-centric bias of British publishing which has served to marginalize Northern writers for far too long. Indeed, the fact that even the new 'multicultural canon' of English Literature remains very visibly metropolitan tells its own story in this regard. Happily, it is a bias which 'Moving Manchester' - both intellectually and practically - has helped to redress. open-access: no transformation required.