'A community united will never be broken': Spontaneous Memorialisation as an Act of Community Resilience and Social Solidarity

“团结的社区永远不会被打破”：自发纪念是社区复原力和社会团结的一种行为

• 批准号: 2301535
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2301535
• 关键词: community; united; will; never; broken

This research will focus on the 7500 messages left at St. Ann's Square after the Manchester Arena attack (May, 2017). The proposal will approach these messages as unique, creative expressions that sought to open up a community space where expressions of grief could instigate a healing process. Accordingly, the research will explore the written messages as empirical evidence that signify a call for community resilience in the face of terrorism. The aim is to draw on the format, length, language, content and design of written messages left at sites of spontaneous memorials to explore issues of memorialisation, collective memory, identity construction, resilience and legacy that emerge from them. It will also examine whether and how the language expressed in these messages can deepen our understanding of the mechanisms of social solidarity and community resilience. Working in close collaboration with the University of Manchester and Manchester Art Gallery, the intention is to focus closely around three questions: 1. How can an investigation into the construction and materiality of the written messages left at St. Ann's Square deepen our understanding of mechanisms of social solidarity and notions of resilience? 2. What can an examination of the content, language and semantic complexities of the messages reveal about how people process and exhibit notions of trauma and transform it into social solidarity and community resilience?3. How are the written messages and, in particular, their notions of solidarity and resilience, received, interpreted and shared by the public? It will question why and how spontaneous memorials occur and what exactly drives participants to physically journey to sites of atrocities in an act of commemoration. In this area of the research, it will argue that such responses to public trauma signifies innate sociocultural behaviours, such as social cohesivity and community bonding, and is used as a means to strengthen and assert beliefs and ideologies. It will also propose to interpret the physical act of writing (Research Question 1) as a cathartic experience that allows participants to share and express; that in itself, the need to share can be linked to our human drive to tell stories and create narratives as a means for transmitting and consolidating belief systems and identities. It will argue that storytelling and written expressions in spontaneous memorials are crucial in the early stages of public atrocities as a form of healing and can offer insight into how the public collectively process notions of identity and respond to acts of violence. In the examination of the language content (Research Question 2), the aim is to carry out textual analysis of the messages left at St. Ann's Square by drawing on (and further developing) existing methods of classifying modes of response. However, where previous methods have focused on public reactions to terrorist attacks in terms of classifications that express localisation and personalisation, the intention is to focus more on the semantic complexities quantified through the views and emotions expressed. Using quantitative research methods alongside text mining, the aim is to divide the corpus of messages into different categories using keywords from the research questions - solidarity, trauma, community and resilience. Each of these keywords will be used to form semantic networks (of words and phrases that can be traced back to their root word), which will allow linguistic data to be drawn out. To examine how the written messages and, in particular, their notions of solidarity and resilience, are received, interpreted and shared by the public (Research Question 3) It will use focus groups and interviews with both participants and non-participants in St Ann's Square spontaneous memorialisation.

这项研究将集中在曼彻斯特竞技场袭击（2017年5月）后在圣安广场留下的7500条信息。该提案将把这些信息作为独特的、创造性的表达方式，寻求开辟一个社区空间，在那里表达悲伤可以激发一个愈合过程。因此，这项研究将探讨书面信息作为经验证据，表明在恐怖主义面前呼吁社区复原力。其目的是利用在自发纪念场所留下的书面信息的格式、长度、语言、内容和设计，探讨纪念、集体记忆、身份建设、复原力和遗产等问题。它还将研究这些信息中表达的语言是否以及如何加深我们对社会团结和社区复原力机制的理解。与曼彻斯特大学和曼彻斯特美术馆密切合作，目的是密切关注三个问题：1。对留在圣安广场的书面信息的结构和实质性的调查如何能加深我们对社会团结机制和复原力概念的理解？2.对这些信息的内容、语言和语义复杂性的研究可以揭示人们如何处理和表现创伤概念，并将其转化为社会团结和社区复原力？3.公众如何接受、解释和分享这些书面信息，特别是其中关于团结和复原力的概念？它将质疑为什么以及如何自发的纪念活动会发生，以及究竟是什么驱使参与者前往暴行现场进行纪念活动。在这一研究领域，它将认为，对公共创伤的这种反应表明固有的社会文化行为，如社会凝聚力和社区纽带，并被用作加强和维护信仰和意识形态的手段。它还将建议将写作的物理行为（研究问题1）解释为一种宣泄体验，允许参与者分享和表达;就其本身而言，分享的需要可以与我们人类讲述故事和创造叙事的动力联系起来，作为传递和巩固信仰体系和身份的手段。它将争辩说，在自发的纪念活动中讲故事和书面表达在公共暴行的早期阶段是至关重要的，作为一种愈合形式，并可以深入了解公众如何集体处理身份概念和应对暴力行为。在检查的语言内容（研究问题2），目的是进行文本分析的消息留在圣安广场，通过借鉴（并进一步发展）现有的方法分类模式的反应。然而，以前的方法集中在公众对恐怖袭击的反应，表达本地化和个性化的分类方面，其目的是更多地关注通过表达的观点和情感量化的语义复杂性。使用定量研究方法和文本挖掘，目的是使用研究问题中的关键词将信息语料库划分为不同类别-团结，创伤，社区和复原力。这些关键词中的每一个都将被用来形成语义网络（可以追溯到其词根的单词和短语），这将允许提取语言数据。为了研究书面信息，特别是他们的团结和韧性的概念，是如何被公众接收，解释和分享的（研究问题3）它将使用焦点小组和采访的参与者和非参与者在圣安广场自发纪念。