Place-making, material culture and 'home' at Second World War 8th United States Army Air Force bases.

第二次世界大战美国第八陆军空军基地的场所营造、物质文化和“家”。

• 批准号: 2119541
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of East Anglia
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2119541
• 关键词: Place; making; material; culture; home

Soldiers have been posted to foreign lands throughout the course of history. Temporary by nature, their encampments are usually dismantled, destroyed or abandoned as soon as their purpose has been served. Despite the impermanency of most wartime bases, the production of material culture can be viewed as part of a unique process of place-making (Wilson, 2013). During the thousand days that the Eighth United States Army Air Force operated in England (1942-1945), American servicemen oversaw the construction and adaption of over seventy airfields in the Eastern counties. Often larger than the small towns and villages which surrounded them, these bases were home to as many as 3,000 American personnel at any one time (Miller, 2008). Built to standardised plans, the airfields were created for the purpose of facilitating bombing raids into occupied Europe as the Allies fought to turn the tide of the war. Despite the utilitarian design of the airfields, the sites were spaces of creative expression and identity, resulting in a material culture unique to any other that the war produced. Wall art, aeroplane nose cone art and handicrafts, such as sweetheart brooches and embroidered cushions made from parachute silk, were created to make bases 'a bit more liveable, and to some degree like home'; a process of place-making that saw the Americans' longing for home shape each base's material culture (Bowman, 2006). The effect of this process of place-making was the transformation of the Eighth Air Force's seventy airfields into individual localities, clearly identifiable to the groups who inhabited them. Seventy years later, an attachment to these sites has continued to endure, vocalised by veterans who talk of 'returning home' to their former bases, and now increasingly by visitors, who claim to feel the 'ghosts' of the past when faced with the material remains of the airfield sites (Edwards, 2015). This historical case study raises numerous questions. How were airfields transformed by their occupants into sites of meaning? To what extent did a longing for home fuel place-making? Is this process replicated at other militarised sites? As a set of unique and relatively un-studied case studies, the air bases of the Eighth Air Force provide the opportunity for a multifaceted study of place and material culture that has contemporary relevance in an increasingly militarised world. Contributing to the fields of conflict archaeology and heritage studies, my thesis also provides an opportunity to advance our understanding of the American personnel who served in England through the structures, objects and images that they created.

在整个历史进程中，士兵都曾被派驻到异国他乡。他们的营地本质上是临时的，一旦达到目的，通常就会被拆除、摧毁或放弃。尽管大多数战时基地都是无常的，但物质文化的生产可以被视为独特的地点创造过程的一部分(威尔逊，2013)。在美国第八空军在英国作战的1000天里(1942-1945)，美国军人监督了东部各县70多个机场的建设和改装。这些基地通常比周围的小城镇和村庄更大，在任何时候都是多达3000名美国人员的家园(Miller，2008)。这些机场是按照标准化计划建造的，目的是在盟国努力扭转战争局势之际，为轰炸被占领的欧洲提供便利。尽管机场的设计是实用的，但这些场地是创造性表达和身份认同的空间，导致了一种与战争产生的任何其他地方都不同的物质文化。壁画、飞机鼻锥艺术和手工艺品，如用降落伞丝绸制成的情侣胸针和刺绣靠垫，都是为了让基地更适合居住，在某种程度上更像家。美国人对家的渴望塑造了每个基地的物质文化(Bowman，2006)。这一选址过程的效果是将第八空军的70个机场改造成单独的地点，居住在这些机场的人可以清楚地识别出来。70年后，人们对这些地点的依恋继续存在，老兵们说要回到他们以前的基地，现在越来越多的参观者声称，当他们面对机场遗址的物质遗迹时，他们感觉到了过去的幽灵(爱德华兹，2015)。这一历史案例研究提出了许多问题。机场是如何被居住者改造成有意义的地方的？对家的渴望在多大程度上推动了排名的上升？这一过程在其他军事化地点也有复制吗？作为一组独特且相对未被研究的案例研究，第八空军空军基地为多方面研究地方和物质文化提供了机会，在日益军事化的世界中，这一研究具有当代意义。我的论文对冲突考古学和遗产研究领域做出了贡献，也提供了一个机会，通过他们创造的结构、物体和图像来增进我们对在英国服役的美国人员的了解。