'Food-work city': oral history and the contested politics of place

At a time of heightened divisions and rampant inequality in many countries, Doreen Massey’s questions ‘What does this place stand for?’ and ‘To whom does this place belong?’ have become increasingly urgent. This chapter considers both questions together in the context of Brexit-era England through the lens of a provincial city that voted to leave the EU in 2016. Reflecting in turn on the national, urban and workplace scales, it draws on critical mobility studies and biographical oral history to query the often taken-for-granted binary: ‘local’ versus ‘migrant’. The chapter ends by suggesting ways in which oral history can itself contribute to changing places through collaborative critiques of racial capitalism both in theory and in practice.