Urban countercultures were actively erased from London’s official history

Evidence

‘This decaying fabric, this unknowable terrain has become my biography, the euphoria then the anguish, layers of memories colliding, splintering and reconfiguring.’ The perspective Ford adopts, the voices she speaks in – and which speak through her – are those of the officially defeated: the punks, squatters, ravers, football hooligans and militants left behind by a history which has ruthlessly photoshopped them out of its finance-friendly SimCity. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 466

Categorization

• XREF: The notion of a history that ‘photoshops out’ the defeated and a city read as ‘layers of erasure and overwriting’ resonates with the archive/erasure themes in Along the Archival Grain and with the ‘palimpsest’ idea. — connects to: London is a palimpsest city where obsolete eras remain physically present — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 341; Modern cities purged disorderly public conduct by making it outright illegal — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 375; Colonial official histories systematically erased European atrocities and labor grievances — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1227 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Modern cities purged disorderly public conduct by making it outright illegal #expands (0.72) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 375
• Colonial official histories systematically erased European atrocities and labor grievances #expands (0.70) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1227