The Southall ever after festival – what COVID-19 taught us about community, research and funding

This article analyses a community project in Southall, south west London, funded by the AHRC, looking at cultural heritage and the arts in relation to the Indian diaspora in the UK. The original aims of project, which included a partnership with Hyderabad University, had to be severely curtailed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The vacuum this created encouraged participants to take control of the process and guided by them the project expanded beyond the South Asian diaspora to encompass the diversity of Southall. This revealed far more nuanced attitudes towards cultural heritage and challenged the notions of dual identities in the original proposal, resulting in a more complex account of identifications across communities.

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