Authenti-City: Heritage, Hipsterfication and the Changing Aesthetics of Consumption in the City of York

The intention of my project is to explore the ways in which retail gentrification has changed the aesthetic character of the city of York. By focusing on the proliferation of independent businesses that characterise the ideals of 'hipsterfication', I intend to investigate the ways in which notions of heritage, authenticity and nostalgia have been appropriated into a particular aesthetic of consumption in the city. By drawing upon the work of Lorentzen and van Heur, I will argue that a specific cultural and political economy has developed in York as a small city, and that the proliferation of the 'hipster' as urban type has instigated a subtle yet visible aesthetic and cultural transformation in the city, with implications for community and consumption. Although I will begin an initial investigation of the city in the first year of study, I will dedicate the majority of this time to the completion of my literature review, ensuring that my project has a firm yet innovative theoretical grounding. During the second year of my project, I will cultivate a sample of images that illustrates the evolution of York's streets from the 1990s to the present, with a particular focus on areas with high concentrations of local and independent businesses. These images will be gathered from a variety of sources, incorporating my own photographic record with images from the York Explore Archive, and news sources such as the York Press Archive. I will use my job at Bruks Coffee Shop as a means of conducting field work that provides me with local knowledge pertaining to the transformation of the city, and will use the rapport that I have with regular customers to gain access to a sample of participants for the interviews that I intend to conduct. This stage will consist of 30 interviews, in which I will make use of photo elicitation to supplement my questions and to prompt succinct articulations from my participants. I will then, in my final year, compile the data that I have gathered into a coherent, vibrant thesis that explores the impact of new forms of aesthetic consumption on the city. I believe that this project is useful as it provides an insight into the development of new economic and cultural networks in the city of York, and considers the ways in which heritage plays an integral role in the production of its social space. Therefore I believe that my project has potential, not only in terms of contributing to the CUrb project, and expanding the relatively narrow literature on small cities, but also as a prospective collaborative effort with initiatives in York itself, such as The Joseph Rowntree Trust. This is due to the way in which I intend to explore inclusive potential of new forms of growth in the city, with a focus on notions of conviviality and community as exemplified by areas of the city, such as Fossgate.