Dr Juliet Henderson on 'Decolonising Florence Park Street Names'
The Presenter
Senior Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University
Applied Linguist, Dr Juliet Henderson and fellow community members from East Oxford discuss their project to decolonize the street names around Florence Park.
Florence Park: Imperial Relic or Vibrant Community?
A few of us in Florence Park are keenly aware of those local street names bearing the names of military men with brutal histories in the British colonies, who worked for the East India Company. With the goal of ‘decolonising’ our area we have started work on a project intended to a) raise awareness about the colonial histories these names incarnate and b) contrast it with the real, vibrant history of our local community which dates back to the 1930s. As a first step to achieving this we plan to place local history community boards in different streets that present the contrasting historical perspectives. We hope this will prompt engagement from the wider community in ongoing plans.
