The History of Tomorrow: A research proposal

为什么一个遭受灾难性经济和社会损失的社区的成员对未来保持乐观的前景，而其他处于类似情况下的社区成员则经历压力和绝望？这一探索性研究早期行动补助金(EARGER)奖支持在社会科学领域开发一种新的理论和方法，以调查和了解面临越来越多的社会和经济未来不确定性的社区。药物滥用只是社会压力的一种表现，在这些社区，很大一部分人口越来越难以把握可行的未来。这个项目植根于研究人员在北大西洋加拿大纽芬兰和拉布拉多省社区进行了40年的人类学实地研究，以及在北卡罗来纳州罗伯逊县社区进行的类似比较经验。这两个社区都经历了搬迁、工厂关闭和自然灾害带来的经济和社会压力。然而，每个社区的大多数成员都以非常不同的方式经历和解释了这些事件。从这个项目中获得的见解为理解社区经历社会和经济不确定性的不同方式提供了希望。从这些见解中，研究人员希望获得关于这些压力源和对可行未来的愿景之间关系的新知识；这些见解可以为支持社区健康和福祉的干预方法提供参考。该奖项支持对处于严重经济和社会压力中的社区进行比较研究，试图了解社区本身对压力源的原因和后果及其对社会和经济不确定性的非常不同的反应的非常不同的概念。这项研究将检查来自北大西洋加拿大纽芬兰和拉布拉多省的两个社区的数据，并与北卡罗来纳州罗伯逊县的两个社区进行比较研究。自20世纪90年代中期以来，这两个地方的当地社区都经历了就业和工资的大幅下降，以及社会支持计划的减少。研究人员指出，已经在当地建立了相当激烈的努力，以帮助那些遭受痛苦的人，并减轻社会和经济压力的后果，但差异仍然存在。这项研究的重点是试图了解从社区到社区的反应范围。以这些情况为起点，首席调查员将为研究“日常生活史”开发新的理论和方法，以此作为评估当地建立的风险和不确定性概念的手段。这项研究建立在马克斯·普朗克历史研究所首次提出的研究“日常历史”的概念和方法上。这项研究项目进一步发展了这些概念和方法，考察了人们在历史中和在他们看来越来越不确定的未来中是如何生活和目前生活的。为此，研究人员将回顾和重新解释他数十年来关于这些社区的实地笔记，并进一步发展研究方法，既关注社区中由社会构成的沉默，也关注社会承认“公开”和“半隐藏”的求助请求的障碍。这项研究不仅将有助于更微妙、更强大的社会压力和压力源理论，而且有可能开发一种方法，揭示作为一种社会现象的压力与对其负面行为和身体反应之间的复杂关系。

Why do the members of one community experiencing catastrophic economic and social loss retain an optimistic outlook for the future and others under similar circumstances experience stress and despair? This Early Action Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award supports the development of a new theory and methodology in the social sciences for investigating and understanding communities facing increasing uncertainty about their social and economic future. Substance abuse is just one manifestation of social stress that characterizes communities where viable futures are increasingly difficult to grasp for large segments of the population. This project is rooted in the investigator's four decades of anthropological field research in communities in the north Atlantic Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and similar comparative experience in the communities of Robeson County North Carolina. Both communities have experienced economic and social stress brought about by relocations, factory closures, and natural disasters. However, the majority of members from each community have experienced and interpreted these events in very different ways. The insights gained from this project hold promise for understanding the different ways communities experience social and economic uncertainty. From these insights, the researcher hopes to gain new knowledge about the relationship between these stressors and a vision for a viable future; insights that can inform intervention methods that support community health and well-being. This award supports a comparative study of communities in severe economic and social stress, seeking to understand the very different ways that the communities themselves conceptualize the causes and consequences both of the stressors and of their very different reactions to social and economic uncertainty. This research will examine the data from two communities in the north Atlantic Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, with comparative research with two communities in Robeson County North Carolina. In both places local communities, since the mid-1990s, have experienced major declines in employment and wages, plus declining social support programs. The researcher points out that there have been locally constructed and fairly intense efforts both to help those who suffer and to mitigate the consequences of social and economic stress, yet the differences persist. The emphasis in this research begins with seeking to understand the range of responses from community to community. Using these circumstances as a starting point, the Principal Investigator will develop new theories and methods for the study of "everyday life histories" as a means for assessing locally constructed concepts of risk and uncertainty. The research builds on the concept and methods for studying "everyday histories" first developed at the Max Planck Institute for History. This research project further develops these concepts and methods by a examining of how people have lived and currently live within and against a history that stretches into what they see as an increasingly uncertain future. Toward this end the researcher will be reviewing and reinterpreting decades of his field notes on these communities, and further developing research methods which focus both on socially constructed silences in communities and obstacles to the social recognition of both "open" and "half-hidden" pleas for help. The research will contribute not only to a more nuanced and powerful theory of social stress and stressors but has the potential developing a methodology for uncovering the complex relationships between stress as a social phenomenon and the negative behavioral and physical responses to it.