RII Track-4:NSF: Reconstructing Reputation in the American South

这个研究基础设施改善轨道-4 EPSCoR研究员（RII轨道-4）项目将提供奖学金，以助理教授和培训的研究生在新奥尔良大学。这项工作将与格鲁吉亚州立大学城市研究所的研究人员合作进行。地方如何获得声誉，人们如何努力建立、支持或拒绝这些声誉？这个项目使用一个案例-美国南部的种族主义和狭隘的声誉，从重建到现在-检查更大的问题，如何地方的声誉得到了。具体来说，这个项目将研究商人在过去和现在亚特兰大的声誉生活中所扮演的角色，作为南方的一个案例。它采取了一个未被充分研究的分裂和不平等的来源-地方声誉-并将其置于悠久的历史和当前的背景中。在地区分割推动关于政治两极分化的流行辩论的时候，更好地理解我们为什么对我们居住的地方有什么看法是对社会有益的。该项目在美国各地发生与不平等有关的大规模抗议活动时尤为重要。由于那些参与该地区抗议活动的人要求从根本上改变刑事司法机构和政治代表性，他们开展了一个关于事物现状和应该如何的项目，该项目与关于事物现状的记忆和神话有关。这样的奋进需要对地方声誉的理解，因为声誉是过去与我们生活在一起的表现，如果我们要理解根植于处理过去的变革呼吁，就必须考虑到声誉。PI将研究商人在出现，维护，以及对美国南部地区从重建到现在的种族主义和狭隘主义声誉的抵制，特别关注民权时代和现在。企业在历史上是种族歧视的重要场所，该地区的商业精英即使面对外部压力也坚持支持种族隔离。也就是说，也有证据表明，企业在经济上受到种族隔离的限制，后民权时代，企业在争夺种族主义声誉方面发挥了积极作用。这种行动可以出于真诚的信仰或纯粹的经济利益，但有证据表明，南方在历史和当代的种族主义和狭隘主义声誉是企业的一个活生生的问题。近年来，在格鲁吉亚州尤其如此，保守派州政府与亚特兰大商界之间在公民权和投票权等问题上爆发了冲突。正是在这种情况下，PI建议使用EPSCoR来帮助新奥尔良大学（UNO）建立知识能力，方法是在格鲁吉亚州立大学（GSU）城市研究所（USI）的主持下在亚特兰大进行研究。PI将在位于GSU和亚特兰大其他地方的一些档案馆进行历史研究，并对亚特兰大商人进行采访。该项目的目标是以亚特兰大为例，更好地了解美国南部地区、声誉和资本主义之间的相互联系。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-4 EPSCoR Research Fellows (RII Track-4) project would provide a fellowship to an Assistant Professor and training for a graduate student at the University of New Orleans. This work would be conducted in collaboration with researchers at the Urben Studies Institute at Georgia State University (GSU). How do places get reputations, and how do people work to build, support, or reject those reputations? This project uses one case—the American South’s reputation for racism and parochialism from Reconstruction to the present—to examine larger questions about how place reputations get made. Specifically, this project will examine the role merchants have played in the reputational life of past and present Atlanta as one case in the South. It takes an understudied source of division and inequality—place reputation—and contextualizes it within both a long history and the current moment. At a time when regional segmentation drives popular debate about political polarization, it is to society’s benefit to better understand why we think what we think about the places we live. The project is particularly important at a time of mass protests related to inequality across the United States. As those engaged with protest in the region demand fundamental changes to institutions of criminal justice and political representation, they undertake a project about the way things are and should be that is related to memory and mythology of the way things were. Such an endeavor necessitates an understanding of place reputation, because reputation is the manifestation of the past living with us in the present, and must be reckoned with if we are to understand calls for change rooted in dealing with that past.The PI will examine the role of merchants in the emergence of, maintenance of, and resistance to the American South’s regional reputation for racism and parochialism from Reconstruction to the present, with a particular focus on the Civil Rights era and the present. Businesses were important sites of racial discrimination historically, and the region’s business elite persisted in supporting segregation even in the face of outside pressures. That said, there is also evidence that businesses were constrained economically by segregation, and post-Civil Rights era, businesses have taken an active role in contesting reputations for racism. Such actions can be done for reasons of sincere belief or pure financial interest, but evidence suggests the South’s historical and contemporary reputation for racism and parochialism is a live issue for businesses. This has been particularly true in recent years in Georgia, where conflict has erupted between a conservative state government and the Atlanta business community over, among other things, civil and voting rights. It is within this context the PI proposes using EPSCoR to help build intellectual capacity at the University of New Orleans (UNO) by conducting research in Atlanta under the auspices of the Urban Studies Institute (USI) at Georgia State University (GSU). The PI will do historical research at a number of archives located at GSU and elsewhere in Atlanta and conduct interviews with Atlanta merchants. The goal of the project is to better understand interconnections among region, reputation, and capitalism in the American South, using Atlanta as a case.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.