Resources – Glasgow Housing Struggle Archive

This is a selection of archives and radical history sites and blogs that have inspired the Glasgow Housing Struggle Archive, and with whom we hope to build links in the future. They are definitely worth exploring for ideas.

“Glasgow’s working class history is a history of struggle and sacrifice not found in the school curriculum. The establishment would rather we forget our own past and deny the suffering and sacrifice of those who created that history. This site is dedicated to remembering and recording their selfless struggle for a better life for all. Add your stories to this site and record Glasgow’s radical history here so that we and future generations can learn from and carry forward that radical tradition.”

“The Spirit of Revolt Archive, based in Glasgow, is dedicated to collecting, managing and preserving multi-media records from Glasgow’s and Clydeside’s anarchist and libertarian-socialist past and present. It was constituted in August 2011 and today its records form part of Glasgow City Archive’s collections whilst the Archive maintains its independence. Our material will remain in the ownership of the Spirit of Revolt group. The Archive is located at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library and its material is accessible in the Reading Room.”

“City Strolls has been hopefully serving a useful community function for the last 10 years. During that time the site has hosted events, updates and community activities. The quote “This is the city and I am one of its citizens. Whatever interests the rest interests me, politics, wars, markets, newspapers, schools, the mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, stocks, stores, real estate and personal estate.” by Walt Whitman still encompasses to me what are the essential ingredients to life in the city (or anywhere).”

“We are open to novel approaches which recognise patterns of both empowerment and disempowerment, which emphasise popular experience without heroising it, and which critically acknowledge the agency of elites in shaping narratives of Scotland. Rather than ‘busting’ or endorsing familiar myths and narratives in our respective fields, we will seek instead to discern the source of their power and enduring influence.”

“This site contains an archive of texts – Workers City (1988), The Reckoning (1990) and the The Keelie (1990-93) – all produced by the Workers City group in the context of challenging the logics of public-private interests before, during, and after Glasgow City Council’s hosting of the European City of Culture in 1990. These texts have been scanned, proof read, and made available by The Strickland Distribution, an artist-run group supporting the development of independent research in art-related and non-institutional practices.”

“Workers’ Stories is a project committed to recording worker perspectives from below. We want to hear your stories of the lockdown whether they are from hospitals and shops or of adapting to your jobs at home or navigating furlough and the benefits system. The ‘everyday’ experience of adapting to an unprecedented set of changes to our economy and society. Our project is based on an ethos of co-production. We want you to produce a submission on your own terms that you feel best captures your experience. But we are also happy to talk it over and support you.”

“Being involved in these social history projects has brought us into a collaborative partnership that includes other community led organisations, universities and research institutions with a focus on using new technology to explore the past and present within a neighbourhood.”

“Our blog provides a clear, critical and accessible point of information about developments in the East End. We intend this site to be a hub for information exchange, publication and alliances. We have established contact with other groups in the area who are concerned about the impacts of the Games, and intend to keep doing so.”

“The London Housing Struggles Archive is a collection of documents related to housing campaigns, squatting and rent strikes.”

“This website, and the print publications which we hope will also stem from it, came about with the aim of collecting accounts of different strands in Manchester’s history, recording them, and making them available to as wide an audience as possible. We’re particularly concerned with recording the memories of older members of our various communities and ensuring that their experiences and knowledge are not lost.”

“Past Tense is a loose collective project that explores working class, social, subversive and underground history and geography, mainly (but not always) around the areas where we live in London – in print, online, and through walks and occasional talks or actions.We’re interested in the past, not as an academic exercise divorced from our own lives and experiences, but because our current struggles to change the world around us for the better resonate with the movements of the past, and have taken place in the same streets and spaces.”