Introduction

I first became interested in the Isle of Dogs when I was working on two difficult to let council estates in the East End of London in the late 1980s. During this research I became friendly with a woman whose flat had panoramic views of the locality. Every time I visited, the view changed. I watched in amazement as a postmodern landscape rapidly took shape and I became increasingly curious about how Docklands residents felt about the development, which was massive in scale and dramatically altering the nature of the place where they lived. From these initial thoughts an ethnographic study grew when in 19901 was awarded the T.H.Marshall Fellowship at the London School of Economics to look at a community in transition on the Isle of Dogs.