Livelihoods as everyday heritage: urban redevelopment, heritage discourses and marketplace trade in Moore Street, Dublin

Abstract

While central to the origins, evolution and provisioning of cities, traditional markets are under threat globally as urban renewal supporting particular forms of economic development comes centre-stage. Design-led placemaking and built heritage policy have become tools of local, regional and national development, and urban heritage has become economically instrumentalised. In this paper, we argue for an alternate conceptualisation. Through a case study of Moore Street market in Dublin, Ireland, we interpret heritage as a complex of activity, place and time, drawing attention to the act of traditional livelihood building through market trading as a form of 'everyday heritage', and thus deserving of protection and support. We recognise that heritage can be produced at multiple scales that escape the bounding of 'designation'. As well as contrasting this living heritage with narrowly defined views of 'heritage' represented by elites, we highlight the potential of more inclusive approaches to heritage that stand in direct opposition to, and challenge, the discourses created by and authorised through particular assemblages at specific moments. We also challenge the homogenisation of working-class heritages in particular places. We conclude that recognising living heritage as critical urban infrastructure could offer a pathway from precarity to sustainability for vulnerable urban communities.

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