On the 14th June 2017, a fire engulfed a tower block in West London, seventy-two people lost their lives and hundreds of others were left displaced and traumatised. The Grenfell Tower fire is the epicentre of a long history of violence enacted by government and corporations. On its second anniversary activists, artists and academics come together to respond, remember and recover the disaster.
The Grenfell Tower fire illustrates Britain’s symbolic order; the continued logic of colonialism, the disposability of working class lives, the marketisation of social provision and global austerity politics, and the negligence and malfeasance of multinational contractors. Exploring these topics and more, the contributors construct critical analysis from legal, cultural, media, community and government responses to the fire, asking whether, without remedy for multifaceted power and violence, we will ever really be ‘after’ Grenfell?
With poetry by Ben Okri and Tony Walsh, and photographs by Parveen Ali, Sam Boal and Yolanthe Fawehinmi.
With contributions from Phil Scraton, Daniel Renwick, Nadine El-Enany, Sarah Keenan, Gracie Mae Bradley and The Radical Housing Network.
Table of Content
Acknowledgements
Preface – Phil Scraton
Introduction – Dan Bulley, Jenny Edkins and Nadine El-Enany
Grenfell Tower, June, 2017 – Ben Okri
1. Everyday Life and Death in the Global City – Dan Bulley
2. Organising on Mute – Daniel Renwick
Photo Essay – Sam Boal
3. Before Grenfell: British Immigration Law and the Production of Colonial Spaces – Nadine El-Enany
4. Struggles for Social Housing Justice – Radical Housing Network, Becka Hudson and Pilgrim Tucker
Ghosts of Grenfell – Lowkey
5. A Border in Every Street: Grenfell and the Hostile Environment – Sarah Keenan
Photo Essay – Parveen Ali
6. Grenfell on Screen – Anna Viola Sborgi
7. Law, Justice and the Public Inquiry into the Grenfell Tower Fire – Patricia Tuitt
The Interloper – Jenny Edkins
8. From Grenfell to Windrush – Gracie Mae Bradley
9. Housing Policy in the Shadow of Grenfell – Nigel de Noronha
Photo Essay – Yolanthe Fawehinmi
10. Come Unity and Community in the Face of Impunity – Monique Charles
Equity – Tony Walsh
Afterword: The Fire and the Academy – Robbie Shilliam
Notes on the Contributors
Index
About the author
Nadine El-Enany is Senior Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck School of Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Race and Law, and the author of Bordering Britain: Law, Race and Empire (MUP, 2020).
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