Mini Grant Projects

Baghdad’s urban fabric carries centuries of history and collective memory. The Socio-cultural Layers of Baghdad project was developed to document this rich heritage and make it publicly accessible through the project’s interactive digital platform. Rooted in ethnographic, historical, and spatial methodologies and drawing inspiration from initiatives like the Layers of London website, the project documents the city’s transformation across centuries, capturing how its built environment, collective memory, and symbolic meanings have evolved through diverse socio-political and cultural contexts.

This initiative responds to the urgent need to preserve and recontextualise Baghdad’s cultural identity amid rapid urban transformation and socio-political shifts. It aligns with global discourses on urban heritage, collective memory, and place-making, situating Baghdad not just as a geographical site but as a layered palimpsest of knowledge, imagination, and lived experience.

The project’s research questions centred on how urban and architectural heritage contribute to Baghdad’s identities, how intangible cultural heritage may be preserved through individual and collective memory, and how digital, participatory mapping can enhance the public’s connection to and understanding of the city’s past. Through site visits and observations, interviews with local business owners, cultural practitioners and visitors, social media analysis and the evaluation of community questionnaires, the project captured the public’s varied responses to and experiences of this historic place. Oral histories and community memories were integrated with layers of digitised historic maps to create an interactive ‘deep map’ of Baghdad from its Abbasid foundation to the present day.

In addition to the creation of the Socio-cultural Layers of Baghdad interactive map-based platform, the project team has contributed to academic discourse through the presentation of conference papers and the development of several forthcoming research papers, with the organisation of several workshops and participation in the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage Eighth Scientific Conference also planned for late summer-early autumn 2025.

Project Outputs

• Development of the project website, which hosts the QGIS-based, media-rich and interactive map

• The project’s ‘Stories of Baghdad’ podcast series hosted on the SCL Baghdad project Youtube channel

• Engagement with University of Baghdad architecture students in field research, sketching and documentation of the Al-Mutanabbi Quarter

• Conference paper delivered at the Eighth Scientific Conference on the Civilizational Role of Baghdad Throughout Historical Eras, hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities – State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, July 2025

• Planned public workshops hosted with the Baghdadi Cultural Centre and the University of Baghdad to introduce the platform, solicit stakeholder feedback and collect archival material and personal narratives to be hosted on the project’s website

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