The post-industrial English canalscape: from enclosure to enlacement

Abstract

In this article we explore how the English post-industrial canal has gone from enclosed and abandoned urban ruin to thriving but contested urban landscape. We contend that canals deserve closer social scientific attention in and of themselves but also as a creative entry point for understanding the instabilities and ambivalences of contemporary urban life. We probe at three dynamics in the English context: uneven cycles of attention from state, capital and civil society that ‘revealed’ the canal over the course of the 20th century; how the contemporary canalscape is made ‘from below’ and how its unique materiality as a stretched, socio-natural waterway has been mobilised, latterly, in biopolitical ways. We note how the cultivated meaning of these previously enclosed industrial relics is now deeply entwined with the mood and mobility of urban dwellers. Methodologically, we excavate these three dimensions through a synthesis of phenomenological attunement and analysis of historical, literary and social scientific accounts.

Absence as an affordance: thinking with(out) water on the inland waterways

“…In the UK, the mostly privately owned canals were built for industrial purposes from the mid-18th century onwards and the 'enclosed canals were absently present "behind the wall" in [-] cities'. 48 In northeastern Italy, where the focal point of the canal and river network is Venice and its lagoon, construction of the canals started in the Middle Ages the publicly owned waterways were similarly used for moving goods and people. In the UK, there was a fast decline of inland waterways transport with the arrival of railways in the 19th century; however, in Italy the decline started only in the beginning of the 20th century.…”

BOATS AS HOUSING IN OXFORD, UK: Trajectories of Informality in a High‐Income Context

“…Likewise, such campaigns did not simply represent a contentious action of the 'people' vs. the 'public sector', as they are often conceptualized in the social-movements literature (Tilly and Tarrow, 2015). Because of the vital role of canals as a representational space of the city's soft infrastructure (Wallace and Wright, 2022), boaters have built varying relationships with neighbours living in formal housing. These range from hostility towards boaters to evident YIMBY ('yes in my back yard') attitudes and support of specific advocacy campaigns led by boaters.…”

“…Aside from a relatively small proportion of families with kids, members of boating communities come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Similarly, despite long‐identified risks of gentrification discussed in some boating communities and areas proximal to canals (Smith, 2007; Wallace and Wright, 2022), and notwithstanding market players’ glamorization and co‐optation of micro‐living solutions (Harris and Nowicki, 2018), boat housing continues to be a relatively affordable option.…”

Transforming paradise: Neoliberal regeneration and more-than-human urbanism in Birmingham

“…Through private–public partnerships (Barber and Hall, 2008), the canal has gone from wasteland to desirable real estate, not least because it is a site where nature appears to flourish in the city. English canalscapes are natural/historical landscapes, a harnessing of nature to aid capitalist expansion (Wallace and Wright, 2022). But, ‘with the advent of the “green” infrastructure, sustainability and wellbeing agendas … urban canals then became normatively inflected as spaces or landscapes we should use to reproduce our lives in responsible ways’ (Wallace and Wright, 2022: 198).…”

“…English canalscapes are natural/historical landscapes, a harnessing of nature to aid capitalist expansion (Wallace and Wright, 2022). But, ‘with the advent of the “green” infrastructure, sustainability and wellbeing agendas … urban canals then became normatively inflected as spaces or landscapes we should use to reproduce our lives in responsible ways’ (Wallace and Wright, 2022: 198).…”