Urban emergence beyond the top-down/bottom-up dichotomy: Vibrant Ipswich, c.600-900 скачать в хорошем качестве

Urban emergence beyond the top-down/bottom-up dichotomy: Vibrant Ipswich, c.600-900

Brandon Fathy (University of Leicester) As arguably Britain’s oldest continuously inhabited town, the early medieval story of Ipswich is a very important one, as it played a key role in England’s “urban revolution”. However, the causes and foundations of England’s earliest towns have long vexed archaeologists. This paper aims to surpass two obstacles that have so far confounded medieval urban historians: the false dichotomy between top-down and bottom-up, and the questioning of foundation instead of emergence. For this paper, I draw on a body of archival data from excavations in Ipswich. I have stratigraphically and spatially analysed data from over 30 excavations across the urban core with nine broad chronological phases. To interpret my data and tell a rich urban history, I draw upon the New Materialism and Assemblage Theory of Jane Bennett and Manuel DeLanda to incorporate nonhuman agency and nonlinear causality. I focus here on the creation of thoroughfares and gravel roads to show that these were the manifestations of competing human agents (kings vs commoners), but also the result of the interaction with materials themselves: ditches, fences, grass, and slag. Some roads emerged spontaneously beside ditches, while others appeared only through the demolition of obstructing buildings. As a result, I am able to frame Ipswich’s early history as a series of nonlinear and oblique discourses between a diverse case of agents. I conclude that by divesting the agency of urban origins to as many agents as possible, we can land at a more rewarding, and more interesting, narrative of urban emergence.