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The Glass Plate

sgknowles
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By Scott G. Knowles: As part of the STL Anthropocene Field Campus the research team visited the Wood Refinery Refinery History Museum on March 9, 2019. This museum is located on the grounds of the Wood River Refinery, a Shell Oil refinery built in 1917 and today owned by Phillips 66. The site is Roxana, Illinois, just upriver from Granite City, and just over two miles from the convergence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Sitting on the actual grounds of the refinery, the museum is an invitation to think across the micro, meso, and macro scales of the Quotidian Anthropocene, in terms of geography and also in terms of time. This refinery was built at the crux of the WWI, at a time when United States petrochemical production was entering an intensive phase of production, invention, corporate structuring, and global engagement. The museum is an invitation to think across temporal scales, backwards to the start of the refinery--through the individual lives of the workers and engineers whose lives defined the refinery--and forward to indeterminate points of future memory. This photo captures a key moment in an informal interview we did with one of the history guides. He had worked in the museum for decades before retiring. He explained to us that the museum sits in the former research facility of the refinery--and the glass plat he is showing reveals a beautiful artifact, a photograph made of the complex when it was built. Our guide only showed us this collection of slides after our conversation had advanced, perhaps after he was sure we were truly interested in his story, and the deeper history of the refinery. The pride in the place, the community of workers, and the teaching ability of the museum was manifest. The research team felt impressed, but also concerned about the health impacts (and naturally the environmental impacts as well) of the refinery. There was a mismatch in the scales--the memory of the individual tied to emotions of pride and knowledge of hard work done there--and the Anthropocene, global scale of petrochemicals. How do we resolve this mismatch? The glass plate is somehow a clue.

Ocean in Amis culture

sharonku
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Did you scan the photos and write down the lyrics?

These are important artifacts that carries memories and stories belong to the grandma and her generation, for instance, their relationship with the ocean, fishery and seafood, etc. 

https://ubrand.udn.com/ubrand/story/12116/4095581

How do they maintain such relationship in the urban setting? What is the meaning of sea to them after living in Hsinchu for decades? Do they feel the difference between the sea in Hsinchu and inTaidung? Why?

Songs as artifacts

sharonku
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There are manu artifacts mentioned in your fieldnote--songs, stories, fishing tools, grocery stores, etc. How do you analyze these artifacts--why and how were they constructed, used? What are the social, economic, cultural meanings/functions of these artifacts? And how have these artifacts helped construct the sense of place and identity of the Naluwan people?

the psychological and material aspects of "home" and "being at home"

sharonku
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What does "home" mean for the Amis? Do material infrastructures play a role in defining the meaning and perception of home? What is the role of Amis women in maintaining the household?

https://wcoh.nttu.edu.tw/var/file/31/1031/img/192/198393977.pdf

https://kjmu.org.tw/%E9%98%BF%E7%BE%8E%E6%97%8F%E5%82%B3%E7%B5%B1%E5%BB…

Place, memories and governance

sharonku
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Interestingly you point out the linear (seeing from the State) vs nonlinear (seeing from the community) dimension. Comparing to Singapore, where government has more authority and coherent plan on urban planning, the Naluwan's experience seems to suggest a different form of governance between the government and the local society. In your prompts, you mentioned Singaporean government's urban planning to create fair housing, greeneries, as well as ethnic policies on promoting integration. I am curious about how you would describe "the sense of community and place" constructed by the top-down authority, comparing to the disordered, spontanious, bottom-up self-assembly mode we saw in Naluwan

songs as artifacts

sharonku
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1. Songs as artifacts, 

2. Faith in God enables their forgiveness: how does the belief in God and in Amis ancestor co-exist? (阿美人有祖靈概念嗎?)

3. 遷徙的過程: 從美山，新莊到新竹，從打漁到打零工，這一路轉換對阿嬤個人，她的家庭以及部落代表著什麼?以及這段小歷史如何被鑲嵌在大歷史的脈絡中?