Aims of the project

The project has two sets of aims.

The first is to generate responses to a number of specific, academically-driven, research questions (see below), each of which addresses the intrinsic presence of the past – recent as well as distant – in the everyday physical and cognitive engagements with urban places of working class and immigrant communities.

The second is to establish an interdisciplinary and cross-sector praxis and synergy, allowing Archaeology, in both its development-led and academic guises, to interact with local communities in ways that are demonstrably of benefit to them. In designing this project as a collaborative venture between the academy (UCD), an arts organisation with local community outreach (CREATE) and a public body (Dublin City Council), we aim to strengthen the links between policy, practice and scholarship by advancing the role of Humanities and of the Arts sector in public policy, debate and practice, and by bringing issues and dynamics of culture and everyday life into policy process and governance, through innovations in the research process.