The double return of Friedrich Engels: Towards a dialectics of the trace

Two sculptures of Friedrich Engels have recently been installed in Greater Manchester, the city where social philosopher spent most his working life and was focus proto-ethnographic account early industrial city. The first sculpture is a fibreglass ‘fabricated ruin’ set within newly rebuilt section University Salford campus. second former Soviet monument that transported from eastern Ukraine to Tony Wilson Place, new arts, business entertainment space central Manchester. While appropriation city’s radical figures movements very much part Manchester’s narrative post-industrial regeneration, ‘homecoming’ decade following 2008 financial crash amid unfolding Brexit crisis raises certain methodological concerns for us. figure who has returned can be to. Here, ‘double return’ read particular ways. In this paper, we bring back Manchester as will immediately re-signify against contemporary political, economic cultural landscape. doing so, advocate dialectics geographical traces grasp contradictions fractures present way works both beyond writing practice Engels. As move on 2019 UK General Election which Conservative party formed substantial majority government into fractured British landscapes 2021 beyond, becomes increasingly necessary.