IN-PERSON Manchester Livable Cities

Abstract

This paper offers a timely intervention into debates beyond gentrification by proposing a framework for reparative urban practices that can be mobilised through collaboration between stakeholders and affected communities. It examines narratives of place-making and displacement surrounding the Seven Sisters Market in North London, focusing on the Latin American community’s struggle against decades of redevelopment threats imposed by urban developers and local authorities. Central to the paper is the re-making of this diasporic space of gathering and belonging—also known as the Latin Village or Pueblito Paisa—as a site of resistance, memory, and repair. The paper reflects on Market Tales, a practice-based research project funded by the British Academy Small Research Grants (University of Derby). Market Tales seeks to sustain and extend the market’s invaluable sociocultural legacy by producing new narratives rooted in lived experience. It documents the market’s transformations over time, the community-led campaign to recover it, and ongoing processes of reparation for a crucial space for migrant diasporas in London. A key outcome of the project is the creation of several creative outputs, such a song, collages and a film, all co-created with the Market’s community. Drawing on a series of community workshops, this paper presents the project’s findings by addressing the research question: how can representation through diverse community engagement demonstrate social and cultural value, challenge planning policy in London, and foster territorial healing?