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

研究基础设施改进Track-4 EPSCoR研究人员(RII Track-4)项目将为新奥尔良大学的一名助理教授提供奖学金，并为一名研究生提供培训。这项工作将与佐治亚州立大学(GSU)厄本研究所的研究人员合作进行。地方如何获得声誉，以及人们如何努力建立、支持或拒绝这些声誉？这个项目使用一个案例--美国南方从重建到现在的种族主义和狭隘的名声--来研究更大的问题，即地方声誉是如何产生的。具体地说，这个项目将考察商人在过去和现在的亚特兰大作为一个案例在南方声誉生活中所扮演的角色。它采用了一个未被充分研究的分裂和不平等的根源--地位声誉--并将其与漫长的历史和当下的背景联系起来。在地区分割推动关于政治两极分化的流行辩论之际，更好地理解为什么我们对我们居住的地方有什么看法，这对社会是有益的。在美国各地因不平等而引发大规模抗议的时候，该项目尤为重要。随着该地区参与抗议的人要求从根本上改变刑事司法和政治代表机构，他们开展了一个关于事情现在和应该是什么的项目，这与记忆和事情过去的神话有关。这样的努力需要对地方声誉的理解，因为声誉是过去在我们现在生活的表现，如果我们要理解根植于处理过去的改变的呼声，就必须重视声誉。PI将研究商人在美国南方地区种族主义和狭隘声誉的出现、维持和抵抗中所扮演的角色，从重建到现在，特别关注民权时代和现在。从历史上看，企业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。话虽如此，也有证据表明，企业在经济上受到种族隔离的限制，在民权时代之后，企业在争夺种族主义的声誉方面发挥了积极作用。这样的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，南方历史和当代因种族主义和狭隘而闻名的问题对企业来说是一个活生生的问题。近年来，佐治亚州的情况尤其如此，保守的州政府与亚特兰大商界之间爆发了冲突，其中包括公民权利和投票权。正是在这一背景下，国际和平研究所建议利用EPSCoR帮助新奥尔良大学(UNO)在佐治亚州立大学(GSU)城市研究所(USI)的主持下在亚特兰大进行研究，从而帮助建设新奥尔良大学的智力能力。PI将对位于格拉斯哥州立大学和亚特兰大其他地方的一些档案馆进行历史研究，并与亚特兰大商人进行访谈。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。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.