Making manifestos for urban history: creative collaboration in a conference workshop

Abstract

This survey reflects on a creative workshop which the authors ran for the ‘The State of Urban History: Past, Present, Future’ conference (July 2023). ‘Making manifestos for urban history’ was an experiment to encourage small group work and co-operative outputs in a conference setting, allowing for an atypical ‘many-to-many’ model of participation. During the session, five groups each produced a manifesto poster addressing issues that they thought were important for the future of urban history. The survey sets out the form the workshop followed, considers those who were involved and comments on how successful the workshop was in fostering conference community and active learning. Feedback recorded at the end of the session indicated that it was indeed successful in both these areas. Overall, the workshop demonstrated that when urban historians work together across generations and continents, they produce work of real value, which is resilient and sustainable.