About the Project
Racial segregation in most major US metropolitan areas is worse today than it was during Reconstruction. This did not happen by accident, nor did it happen overnight. The origins of racial segregation in the American city are deep, and go far beyond the oft-cited quip that “birds of a feather flock together.” Rather, a combination of federal housing policy and both overt and indirect racism throughout much of the 20th century lie at its heart.
While there is mounting historical, theoretical, and quantitative research on the persistence of segregation, there is significantly less rich, in-depth, qualitative research on the embodied human experience of growing up, living, working, and raising children in America’s 21st century segregated cities. To that end, the purpose of this project is to engage the local community in participatory action research (PAR) that focuses on the embodied experience of living apart through oral history and photography. Specifically, our guiding research questions are:
What can we learn about the experience of living in racially segregated cities using oral history interviews and “photovoice” with a diverse group of people?
How can oral histories, photography, audio, and digital mapping be used to engage the community in meaningful, open ways to challenge the “naturalness” of segregated landscapes and explore alternative futures.
This project is simultaneously academic and creative, and actively engages the local community in all phases of research. To date we have conducted interviews with over 100 participants from throughout the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, dozens of participant photographers have captured hundreds of images of places that are meaningful to them in their lives, and we have built a series of online, interactive maps allowing anyone to explore in extensive detail the ongoing socio-environmental impacts of our legacy of redlining and segregation.
The project will culminate in a multi-media exhibition that features photographic portraits, audio installation, participant photography, and both in-print and digital maps, to be shown in galleries and community arts centers throughout the region. In addition to the gallery show, we will also create an online version of the exhibit that will serve both to archive oral histories and to allow the viewer to explore the embodied experience of 21st century segregation from any internet-connected device.