Popular Music Heritage, Cultural Justice and the Deindustrialising City

This Element analyses the capacity for popular music heritage to enact cultural justice in the deindustrialising cities of Wollongong, Australia; Detroit, USA; and Birmingham, UK. It outlines how the quest for cultural justice manifests in three key ways.

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The celebration of popular music can be an important mode of cultural expression and a source of pride for urban communities. This Element analyses the capacity for popular music heritage to enact cultural justice in the deindustrialising cities of Wollongong, Australia; Detroit, USA; and Birmingham, UK. The Element develops a critical approach to cultural justice for examining music and the city in a heritage context and outlines how the quest for cultural justice manifests in three key ways: collection, preservation and archiving; curation, storytelling and heritage interpretation; and mobilising communities for collective action.