Abstract:

Similar to many inner-city neighborhoods in industrial towns of the American Midwest, Milwaukee’s Northside neighborhoods experienced rapid deterioration after the Second World War. Racial segregation and unjust policies negatively impacted poor African American neighborhoods. Interested in documenting history from the point of view of marginalized residents, we engaged community members in data collection and analysis adapting method from collaborative ethnography. Our empirical field research brought researchers in close contact with residents, exposing the former to contradictions produced by expert and lay perceptions of value and significance. Community residents taught us that mere analysis of the buildings from period one—that is the period it was built—offers an incomplete picture. When we adopted ethnographic methods to examine the physical world from the perspective of African American residents, we discovered that a long history of grassroots resistance against inequitable urban policies produced two overlooked sets of heritage sites—the first, retrofitted vernacular buildings and the second, repurposed spaces in-between buildings. Our fieldwork not only offered us a different understanding of heritage in the built environment, but this experience transformed us into advocates of marginalized histories of neglected places.

摘要：

与美国中西部工业城镇的许多内城街区类似，密尔沃基的北区街区在第二次世界大战后迅速恶化。种族隔离和不公正的政策对贫穷的非裔美国人社区产生了负面影响。有兴趣从边缘化居民的角度记录历史，我们让社区成员参与数据收集和分析，采用协作人种学的适应方法。我们的实证实地研究使研究人员与居民密切接触，使前者暴露于专家和非专业人士对价值和意义的看法所产生的矛盾。社区居民告诉我们，仅对第一时期（即建造时期）的建筑物进行分析，就提供了不完整的图景。当我们采用人种学方法从非裔美国居民的角度审视现实世界时，我们发现草根长期抵制不公平的城市政策产生了两组被忽视的遗产地——第一组是翻新的乡土建筑，第二组是重新利用的建筑物之间的空间。我们的实地考察不仅让我们对建筑环境中的遗产有了不同的理解，而且这种经历使我们成为了被忽视地方的边缘化历史的拥护者。