Re: [hp_folk] Digest for hp_folk@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic

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Holly Taylor

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Sep 21, 2023, 2:55:06 PM9/21/23
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I have a little different take on the Getty's work than Jeremy.  The excellent research publications on Values in Cultural Heritage that were produced in the early 2000s were part of an initial short term project.  That work has continued under the leadership of Susan MacDonald, with the most recent published report in 2019 on Values in Heritage Management https://www.getty.edu/publications/heritagemanagement/, a free download.  

I also have a different perspective on the state of the preservation field, and preservation research than Jeremy.  As a 30 year practitioner and current PhD candidate, I am optimistic about the possibilities for evolution in the preservation field -- evolution in leadership, regulations, research methods, and theoretical grounding.  You name it, I'm optimistic about it, especially about the field's potential re-orientation toward cultural values.  Many of us forget how dramatic the field's reorientation was in the 1960s, from an earlier focus on historical sites of national significance, toward a focus on architectural properties of local significance.  I think we are seeing an equally profound reorientation toward place of cultural significance -- it's just going to be an agonizing process for the regulatory framework to catch up with theory and practice.  The folks in this HP Folklore working group are leading the way -- keep doing what you are doing! 
Holly Taylor
Past Forward NW Cultural Services
University of Washington College of Built Environments      

On Wed, Sep 20, 2023 at 7:50 PM <hp_...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Jeremy Wells <dr.jere...@gmail.com>: Sep 20 11:57AM -0400

Greg — thank you. You’re spot on with the other presses, especially Routledge, as the peer review process isn’t, shall we say, as “nitpicky.” A few years ago, the U of TN press sent out my book prospectus, which included three completed chapters, to three peer reviewers who did, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and conditions, recommend the press accept the book for publication, pending further peer review on the chapters to be completed (it’s this last stage where I’m at, now). Technically, as I have a contract with the press, they’d need to release me from it before I could take the book to another press.
 
I still clearly remember one peer reviewer writing how “offensive” it was that I referred to influential historical leaders in the field as “white,” especially when the actions being described were clearly discriminatory against people with minoritized identities. Thankfully, the editor looked past that, but the number of these far-right comments I get from peer reviewers is so demoralizing. I expect more pushback like this when the last peer review comments arrive.
 
-Jeremy
 
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David Rotenstein

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Sep 21, 2023, 3:42:39 PM9/21/23
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I’m firmly in the “Jeremy camp on this.” In fact, you might say that I’m in an underground bunker beneath Jeremy’s camp because I’m a lot more radicalized and disaffected than Jeremy. 

I see no hope for improvement in historic preservation practice as a profession and here’s why. Yes, the NTHP, academics, et al. are on brand with the equity, tell the full story branding. But when it comes to putting it into practice, it comes from the top down in ways that engender little trust and that don’t create sustainable models for others. 

There are exceptions, like Andrea Roberts’s Texas Freedom Colonies project, which work because they originate from the grassroots and are ethics-driven.

For the most part, every organization with which I have worked has squandered and avoided opportunities to disrupt racial and class hierarchies. Whether it’s because they don’t want to offend funders or clients or grad school colleagues or …. Most HP folks and the organizations where they work prefer to stick in the safe lanes.

I’ll simply give a couple of examples that illustrate why I would rather beg for freelance writing assignments than ever do another historic preservation project. The first derives from my work in Decatur, Ga. I wrote about it for the JAF special issue on historic preservation. Way back in 2013, the NTHP had a chance to intervene in this community and perhaps make a real difference in protecting what remained of the Black cultural landscape and historic resources AND to disrupt the structural racism that continues to harm the city’s Black residents. A decade later, there may be a handful of historic sites left; the cultural landscape is illegible; and, the same system that erased Black people and Black history continues to do violence against the community and its diaspora: https://themetropole.blog/2023/09/06/decatur-day-and-the-history-of-serial-displacement-in-an-atlanta-suburb/.

My second example comes from Pittsburgh, Pa., and a well-publicized HP project: the so-called National Negro Opera Company House. Over the past four years I have developed strong friendships and professional collaborative relationships with people who have deep ties to the property at 7101 Apple Street in Pittsburgh (only preservationists, et al. call it the National Negro Opera Company House). Folks whose families lived in the house and who helped make it “historic” reached out to me as the historic preservation programs were proceeding. Their main complaints were that the projects erased their stories and conveyed fictional narratives about the property and its people. The projects have the backing of the NTHP, prominent philanthropies, and local preservation groups. The local preservation group that authored a NRHP nomination that is more fiction than fact had a violent reaction when I simply suggested that they pull the nomination and allow for peer review and community engagement. The organization went so far as to threaten me, as in tell me in a recorded interview (for the news outlet for which I write) that if I kept up the line of questioning I would be doing myself irreparable economic and professional harm. My article on that project was published earlier this year: https://nextpittsburgh.com/pittsburgh-for-all/its-time-to-correct-the-record-for-a-pittsburgh-black-history-landmark/. And yes, I did interview Jeremy for the article.

I’ll leave it with those two examples but I can draw on many more where HP people and organizations have failed the very people they claim to care about. They only care when it’s convenient and there are ROIs.

David

On Sep 21, 2023, at 2:55 PM, Holly Taylor <htva...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Jeremy Wells

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Sep 21, 2023, 3:47:20 PM9/21/23
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I very much agree with, as Holly put it, “the possibilities for evolution in the preservation field,” because that’s a very accurate summation of the current situation. Lots of possibilities, but no concrete changes. But, more importantly, we (meaning the scholars and practitioners in the field) need to have some kind of common agreement on the ways to measure how successful possibilities become concrete changes.

First, success is not defined by a journal or book publication or a public presentation. For individuals, yes, but for the public, no.

Given that 70% of paid practice in the historic preservation field is driven by regulatory compliance, if change is happening, it needs to be reflected in public policy changes. So is public policy changing? (For reference, historic preservation [public] policy consists of the laws, regulations, guidelines, and official actions undertaken by local, state, and federal government entities.)

Assessment of historic preservation policy change in the US over the past 30 or so years:

  1. Has the National Historic Preservation Act changed? No.
  2. Has Section 106’s implementing regulations (36 CFR 800) changed significantly? No.
  3. Has the implementing regs for the National Register changed? No.
  4. Have the implementing regs for the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards changed? No.
  5. Have the guidelines from the NPS to prepare an NR nomination changed? No.
  6. Have the NPS's guidelines for the Secretary of the Interiors Standards changed significantly? No.
  7. Has any state SHPO issued state preservation laws, regulations, or guidelines that supersede federal regulations in the interest of a more people-centered approach? No.
  8. Has any local municipality implemented a preservation ordinance that does not enshrine, at its core, federal preservation standards in the interest of a more people-centered approach? No. 

Scorecard: 0/8 = 0% = Failure.

Another way to look at measures of success is if cutting edge research and evidence is driving the potential for future policy change. I think we can all answer that by asking ourselves when the last time a government official — elected or paid staff — came to any of us for either our advice or a contracting opportunity to create a more people-centered approach to historic preservation? When’s the last time a public historic preservation RFP/RFQ asked for our kind of expertise? Another way of looking at this is that our preservation policy leaders aren’t finding value in the work we (scholars/change advocates) are doing. So is the “failure” us, or them, or something else entirely? 

But, as I mentioned earlier, a number of European countries get a much better grade than this, so to me, that’s where the hope is: not in the US, but abroad. And I still have hope that our leaders, who influence public preservation policy, might be open to realizing that some things can and are done better elsewhere. 

-Jeremy


Jeremy Wells

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Sep 21, 2023, 3:56:15 PM9/21/23
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I very much appreciate David’s perspective, below. I especially respect his continued willingness to speak the truth in light of possible and real harm to himself, in body and mind. For those of us who “taste” different to the historic preservation field, too many of us have been chewed to a pulp and spit out. Sometimes the injuries make us leave, sometimes we dig in further, but in the end, we are all doing this because we see the harm the field does and cannot continue to tell lies to ourselves, our colleagues, and the public.

I am reminded of the time a head of a SHPO who, in response to a presentation on social justice issues in preservation, said, in a public meeting, “so, is everything I do now garbage”?

My answer, which I was too timid to say in public, but echoed in my head: "No. But, you need to stop treating people like garbage and open a space for respectful dialog for change."

-Jeremy

Laurie Sommers

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Sep 21, 2023, 4:53:30 PM9/21/23
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Lest we all sink into a pit of gloom--and admitting that institutions change at a glacial pace--does anyone see a ray of hope in the larger preservation universe?  I for one was not familiar with the Texas Freedom Colonies Project.  What does our collective knowledge tell us about other good, people centered projects involving place?  I can say that the work of Fishtown Preservation Society is still a breath of fresh air, and is widely loved by the preservation community in Michigan.  It was a vehicle to educate the NR coordinator at the MI SHPO, who is a very nice guy, about TCPs, for example.  And I am heartened by the movement in NR staff to recognize the importance of oral history and community/local knowledge as a valid--indeed the superceding--voice in identifying meaning and significance of a place.   This seems to come from listening to tribal voices, but this view has been important in recent work on Fishtown, where it applied to non-tribal commercial fishers. 

It seems to me that there are institutions that are training the next generation of HP and related professionals in more people centered work.  I served on a MA committee for Nikki Waters at Goucher College, for example, who did a wonderful people-centered project, and about the time that the Fishtown TCP NRN was listed, I was contacted by a student in the Heritage Conservation Program at USC and another at Oregon, both doing interesting work combining place, culture, and preservation.

Drops in the bucket, perhaps.  But what else is out there?   

Laurie

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Laurie Sommers, PhD
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Robin Krawitz

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Sep 21, 2023, 5:54:56 PM9/21/23
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Greetings from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History annual conference in Jacksonville FL. I wanted to share two things I’ve learned here. The first session I attended was on Florida Freedom Schools, set up this year to educate kids in Black History!  Warms my heart to see these folks using the Civil Rights strategy to take a stand against what’s happening here in state government. 

The second is the Gullah/Geechee on St Helena Island in South Carolina have found a cultural protection strategy through a Cultural Protection Overlay. I want to look into this in more detail because it sounds interesting and I think it might have potential as a strategy. 

Take heart my colleagues. 

Robin Krawitz 
NPS Network to Freedom Program 

Margaret Magat

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Sep 21, 2023, 5:55:14 PM9/21/23
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Thank you all for sharing your perspectives and experiences. I can speak a little to the federal environmental compliance side, as a contractor working with cultural resources and tribes. For the last two years, I've seen an effort under the current administration to emphasize executive orders like 13175 Consultation and Coordination (from 2000) to be implemented by federal agencies, encouraging outreach and recognition of traditional cultural properties and sacred sites. And from the tribes I've worked with, an emphasis on their rights to request an arch survey or monitoring report and ask for these to be done along with NAGPRA plans of actions. Although i am no longer working in Hawaii, I’ve kept somewhat abreast and am heartened that more NHOs are demanding and obtaining training on Sec 106 and for cultural lanscapes to be recognized as such. Not much on the overall scheme of things but I see it as positive spots.
Best,
Margaret

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