The Cultural Values of Digging

近年来，围绕挖掘的活动再次变得非常流行，包括受到文化机构的关注。近年来，许多文化机构重建了战时(分配)花园，以突出一系列不同的问题和价值观。这样的展览和活动是在新一轮紧缩措施出台之际组织的，人们对食品和环境的担忧加剧，这些展览和活动与当代的情况有明显的相似之处，为重新思考我们自己的价值观提供了可能性。该项目旨在更好地了解近年来围绕挖掘问题重新出现的各种不同方式，通过观察不同的人和行为者如何表达和动员这些问题来分析、理解和衡量这些问题。这可以被表达为实际的挖掘并与食物生产联系在一起，更多的是象征性的挖掘，作为表演和事件，挖掘当地历史，或者作为新的礼物赠送形式。这项提议是为了设立一个研究发展奖，以检查这些(重新)出现的挖掘形式，并为它们的文化价值建立证据。根据文化价值项目，这一拟议项目极大地促进了制定严谨的方法，以研究、阐明和使用案例研究作为评估文化价值各方面的证据，在我们的案例中涉及价值被赋予挖掘的一系列不同方式。这个项目将通过五个不同的方面来考察这些不同形式的挖掘，通过研究它们感知到的文化价值：挖掘作为“国家建设”、挖掘作为“生活方式选择”、挖掘寻找“遗产”、挖掘以实现“社区建设”和挖掘作为“礼物”。它通过关注两个不同的社会规模来做到这一点：一是着眼于个人和社区群体，二是审查主流媒体和最近的相关政策举措。该项目提出了以下问题：1.与挖掘相关的不同文化价值是什么？它们是如何通过确定的五个主题链以及不同的社会规模和制度水平表达出来的？2.不同的历史参照点是如何用来阐明和解释这些价值观的？3.挖掘与公民意识以及它对今天的英国人意味着什么有什么联系？4.与这些价值观相关的不同想象的未来和社会轨迹是什么？该项目特别关注在当代背景下对以下三种历史动机和运动的重新发现、再利用和重新创作：17世纪的挖掘者、战时的胜利挖掘运动和20世纪70年代的流行电视节目The Good Life。选择了哪些方面，以及如何在五个不同的挖掘主题以及两个社会规模和机构内调动这些方面。为了回答我们的研究问题，该项目开发了四个不同但相互关联的案例研究，显示了使用这种新来源的潜力和价值，以及相关的方法，用于确定和证明个人和团体的经验，特别是重点使用社交媒体。我们的案例研究集中在：2000-2012年间英国平面媒体对挖掘的描述；温斯坦利纪念挖掘者节；战时花园的重建；大挖掘，这是最近的一项倡议，鼓励人们通过挖掘“给予”。该项目将撰写一篇工作论文和两篇期刊文章。该项目将举办一次极具创新性的项目结束活动，确保在学术界内外传播和产生影响。我们的影响战略涉及公共部门、商业和私营部门、第三部门和更广泛的公众。

Activities around digging have become massively popular again in recent years, including in the attention they have received from cultural institutions. Many cultural institutions have in recent years recreated wartime (allotment) gardens to highlight a range of different issues and values. Such exhibitions and events, organized during a time of renewed austerity measures, increased concerns around food and the environment, draw obvious parallels to the contemporary moment, offering possibilities to rethink our own values. This project seeks to better understand the myriad of different ways in which issues around digging have reemerged in recent years, to analyse, understand and measure these by looking at how they have been expressed and mobilized by different people and actors. This can be expressed as actual digging and linked to food production, as more symbolic digging, as performance and event, digging up local histories, or as new forms of gift giving. This proposal is for a Research Development Award to examine these multiple (re)emergent forms of digging and to establish evidence for their cultural value. In line with the Cultural Value project, this proposed project significantly adds to the development of rigorous approaches to the researching, articulation and use of case studies as evidence for evaluating dimensions of cultural value, in our case related to a range of different ways value is attached to digging. This project will examine these different forms of digging by studying their perceived cultural value through five distinct aspects: digging as 'nation-building', digging as 'lifestyle choice', digging for 'heritage', digging to enable 'community building' and digging as 'gift'. It does this by focusing on two different social scales: looking and both individual and community groups and secondly by examining the mainstream media and recent relevant policy initiatives. The project asks the following questions: 1. What are the different cultural values associated with digging and how are they articulated through the five identified thematic strands as well as the different social scales and institutional levels?2. How are different historical reference points used to articulate and explain these values?3. How is digging linked to ideas of citizenship and relevant to what it means to be British today?4. What are the different imagined futures and societal trajectories associated with these values? The project is specifically interested in the rediscovery, reuse, reworking within a contemporary setting of these three historical motives and movements: the 17th Century Diggers, the wartime Dig for Victory campaign and popular 1970s TV show The Good Life. What aspects are selected, and how are these mobilized across the fives different digging themes and within the two social scales and institutions. To answer our research questions, the project develops four distinct, but interconnected case studies, which show the potential for the use and value of such new sources, and associated methodologies, for the identification and evidencing of personal and group experiences, specifically focusing on the use of social media. Our case studies focus on: the UK print media representations of digging, 2000-2012; The Winstanley Festival remembering the Diggers; the recreation of a wartime garden; the Big Dig, a recent initiative that encourages people to 'give' through digging. The project will develop a working paper and two journal articles. The project will host one highly innovative end of project event ensuring dissemination and impact within and beyond academia. Our impact strategy engages the public sector, commercial and private sector, third sector and wider public.