Civic associations and urban community: local history, place-making and activism in twentieth-century Britain

从19世纪晚期开始，公民协会在英国的许多城镇已经发展成为一个受欢迎和有影响力的特征。它们为社区和当地城市人口的行动主义提供了焦点，将居民与当地专业人员和政策辩论联系起来，并确立了社区参与城市管理政策的潜力。在二十世纪的过程中，公民协会对城市景观产生了广泛的关注，包括保护和遗产，规划和发展，当地历史和地方身份。他们通过各种方式开展工作，与学校、企业和地方当局合作，发布信息和指南，开展活动，筹款，并通过购买建筑物或土地直接干预，以保护当地的设施。就其本身而言，它们是重要的，但在相当长的一段时间里，它们对英国的地方建设做出了很大程度上未被探索的贡献。本研究包含三个核心要素。第一部分是对现有文献的回顾，这些文献将借鉴城市和社会历史、规划、保护和遗产研究以及社会科学。通过这一审查过程，我们打算确定经验和概念相关的现有领域。文献综述将导致一篇学术文章，将我们的研究置于当前思想的明确综合中，并为未来的研究提出前进的方向。本研究的第二个要素是对现存的与英国公民行动主义历史有关的档案材料的探索。该研究的探索性部分将在评估公共和私人档案中的文件证据方面开辟新天地。我们将为这些材料制作一份指南，一份档案评估文件和寻找援助，这将是未来研究的关键参考，对那些目前活跃的公民和舒适社会感兴趣和有价值。这份文件将通过公民运动传播，并通过纽卡斯尔大学主办的专门网页提供。该项目的最后一部分将是第二篇期刊文章。这将检查我们对社区的理解提出的一些概念性问题，该项目关注历史、场所制造和行动主义。特别是，本文将寻求为我们理解独特的地方和历史身份对社区群体形成的重要性提供更强有力的理论基础。在这样做时，它将处理与提高当地福利和参与能力有关的当代重要问题。

From their origins in the late nineteenth century, civic associations have grown to be a popular and influential feature in many of Britain's towns and cities. They have provided a focus for community and for activism among local urban populations, connecting residents with local professional and policy debates, and establishing the potential for community engagement in urban management policy. Over the course of the twentieth century civic associations have developed a broad-based concern for the urban landscape that incorporates conservation and heritage, planning and development, local history and place identity. They have worked through a wide range of methods, collaborating with schools, businesses and local authorities, publishing information and guides, campaigning, fundraising and intervening directly through the purchase of buildings or land in order to protect local amenities. As such, they are significant, but largely unexplored contributors to place-making in Britain over a sustained period of time. This study contains three core elements. The first is a review of existing literature that will draw on urban and social history, planning, conservation and heritage studies, and the social sciences. Through this review process we intend to identify existing areas of both empirical and conceptual relevance. The literature review will lead to an academic article that situates our research within a definitive synthesis of current thinking and suggesting ways forward for future research. The second element of this study is an exploration of surviving archival material relating to the history of civic activism in Britain. This exploratory part of the research will break new ground in its assessment of documentary evidence held in both public and private archives. We will produce a guide to this material, an archives assessment document and finding aid, that will be a key reference for future research and of interest and value to those currently active civic and amenity societies. This document will be disseminated through the civic movement and made available through dedicated webpages hosted by Newcastle University. The final element of the project will be a second journal article. This will examine some of the conceptual questions raised for our understandings of community by the project focus on history, place-making and activism. In particular, this article will seek to develop a stronger theoretical basis for our understanding of the importance of distinctive place and historical identity for community group formation. In so doing, it will address questions of contemporary importance relating to increased capacity for local well-being and participation.