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中期研究报告
Mid-Term Research Report
August 29th, 2024
自20世纪80年代中国实施改革开放政策以来，温州市政府和私营部门都在追求最快的经济增长道路。在过去40年中，现代基础设施和制造业成功案例的快速复制被证明是最有效的方式（Shen，2023）。
然而，在这一过程中，这座千年古城的灿烂文化遗产在物质和精神层面都逐渐消退。更糟糕的是，由复制发展轨迹导致的产能过剩使这种做法的效果大不如前。当同质化的城市建设在当今不再具有竞争力时，重新探索城市文化的独特性是否变得重要？
基于上述研究和思考，这个项目的研究问题被确定为：
制造业小城市如何探索自身的文化意义？——温州市案例研究
为了发展这项研究的方法论，我采用了“档案”这一概念。Les Roberts（2014）提出了“城市即档案”的隐喻，其理论基础是城市是“文本”，其景观以多种方式承载着近代历史的考古痕迹，而档案城市可以被视为一个充满可能性、创造力、能动性和“多用户民主”的空间。
Zinn（1977）倡导档案工作者“用心汇编一个全新的文献资料世界，这个世界包括了关于普通人的生活、愿望和需求”，并“开始在创造真正的民主中发挥一些微小的作用”。无论是通过现代通信工具促进，还是遵循一些传统的档案活动（如古物收藏或在档案馆做志愿者），参与式档案鼓励用户“被重新概念化为共同构建历史理解的积极参与者”（Benoit & Eveleigh，2021，pp. 15-16）。
“城市即档案“解释了城市文化资产的持续存在，而关键之处在于鼓励市民对其的积极探索。运用参与式档案的方法论，本项目所采取的行动研究核心点得以确定：邀请市民成为温州的共同档案管理员。
通过邀请市民参与档案记录过程，并提供他们自己的生活故事和对温州的见解，该项目旨在唤起市民对城市独特文化底蕴的自豪感，并鼓励每个人意识到自己在保护这些文化需要承担的责任。
在干预设计方面，我最初的想法是建立一个去中心化的在线社区作为数字档案。然而，如果没有基本框架和原始内容来支持社区，可能会面临更高的失败风险。因此，我决定以线下活动为切入点，然后从线下收集的数据开始构建在线档案。
于是，我设计了第一个干预活动，名为“以酒换故事”的线下项目。在该项目中，我邀请当地度假酒店的客人围绕温州的文化主题进行自由交谈。酒店位于温州当地的一个本地人熟知的风景度假区，这使我能够接触到温州市民群体。关于该项目的详细信息，我已于6月在一份研究日志中写下计划，可通过链接查看。
在项目期间，我共收集了与32人的谈话录音，并附有参与者提供的一些额外文件或实物。在数据分析过程中，我发现专家与非专家之间的界限变得模糊。尽管一些从事文化产业的参与者能够提供丰富的历史、艺术或其他文化领域的知识，但通过我的观察，城市的文化资产可能更具动态性，并隐藏在居民的思想和日常生活中。从事商业、慈善、政府、教育或其他任何领域的人都可以为档案提供有趣的故事和意想不到的见解。
除了为在线档案建设收集数据外，我还通过观察参与者对成为共同档案员的反应来评估第一个线下项目的效果。在32名参与者中，8人帮助我建立了他们认为值得采访的新联系人，4人约我参观他们推荐的各类场所，1人与我讨论了未来在教育领域的合作，这些或许都能被视为干预活动积极反馈的证据。
目前，我正在处理数据并构建档案网站（链接：https://archiwenzhou.cn）。在网站内容整理完毕并进行初步的品牌化后，我将启动档案的在线推广作为第二次干预，并通过与目标群体的在线交互收集更多数据以丰富档案内容。
该项目的第一次干预在吸引目标群体参与项目主题方面具有影响力。通过长时间的对话和面对面的接触，很容易与目标群体建立信任并收集深入的内容。然而，这种做法由于地理限制而不可持续。当项目转移到在线平台时，其有效性需要重新测试。为了解决这个问题，我应该考虑转换存档形式，以提高项目的灵活性。
该项目的第二个优势是，它有潜力与报社，教育组织等政府机构，以及咖啡馆民宿等私营企业建立未来合作。通过潜在的合作，档案的教育价值可以嵌入到日常生活中。
I began to be aware of the cultural distinctiveness of my hometown Wenzhou during the research process in Unit 1, whereas I found this distinctiveness is seldom included in daily topics by citizens compared with discussions on city modernization or trendy entertainment.
Since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy in China in the 1980s, the municipal government and private sectors of Wenzhou have both been pursuing for the road to the fastest economic growth. In the past 40 years, the rapid replication of successful cases in modern infrastructure and manufacturing was proved to be the most efficient way (Shen, 2023).
However, during this process, the brilliant cultural legacy of this thousand-year-old city was gradually diminished both physically and spiritually. And the worse thing is that the overcapacity led by the replicated developing trajectory makes this practice less effective than before. When homogeneous city construction is no longer competitive nowadays, would it be important to re-explore the uniqueness of the city culture?
Based on my research and thoughts above, the research question was developed:
How can small manufacture-based cities explore their own cultural significance?
— a case study of Wenzhou city in China
— a case study of Wenzhou city in China
To develop the methodology for this research, the concept of archive was adopted. Les Roberts (2014) proposed the metaphor of the city as archive with the rationale that cities are “texts”, whose landscapes bear the archaeological traces of the recent past in any number of ways, and the archive city can be conceived as a space of possibility, creativity, agency and ‘multi-user’ democracy.
Zinn (1977) advocated archivists to ‘take the trouble to compile a whole new world of documentary material, about the lives, desires, needs, of ordinary people’ and ‘to begin to play some small part in the creation of a real democracy’. Whether being facilitated by modern tools of communication or following some traditional archiving activities like antiquarian collecting or volunteering in archives, participatory archive encourages users to ‘be reconceptualized as active participants in the co-production of historical understanding’ (Benoit & Eveleigh, 2021, pp. 15-16).
The metaphor of Archive City explains for the lasting cultural significance of the city, but the important thing is to encourage the active exploration of it. With the adopted concept of participatory archive, the methodology for this project was identified: to invite citizens to be the co-archivists of Wenzhou city.
Through inviting citizens to participate in the archiving process and providing their own life stories and insights into Wenzhou, this project aims at arousing citizens’ pride towards city’s distinctive cultural assets and encouraging everyone to realize their responsibility in the protection of the assets.
For intervention design, my original idea was to build a decentralized online community as a digital archive. However, without the basic framework and original content to support the community, it might take the higher risk of being in vain. For this reason, I decided to initiate an offline activity as an entry point, and then build the online archive starting with the documentation of the data collected offline.
Therefore, I developed my first intervention as an offline program called Drinks for Stories, during which I invited the guests in a local holiday hotel to conduct the free talk under the cultural theme of Wenzhou. Since the hotel is in a locally well-known scenic area, I was able to approach the group of guests who were residents of Wenzhou. For the details of this program, I have written down the plan in a research log in June, which can be viewed through the link.
During the program, I collected audio records of talks with 32 people in total, accompanied with some additional digital files or artefacts provided by the participants. During the process of data analysis, I found the boundaries between experts and non-experts were blurred. Even though some participants who are engaging in cultural industries could provide abundant knowledge in history, art or other cultural fields, the cultural assets could be more dynamic and hidden in residents’ thoughts and daily lives through my observations. People working in business, charity work, government office, education or any other field could all provide interesting stories and unexpected insights to the archive.
In addition to data collection for the online archive construction, I also evaluate the effect of the first offline program through observing the participants’ responses to being the co-archivists. Among 32 participants, 8 people helped me build the new connections to people who they thought to be worth interviewing with, 4 people made the appointment with me for visiting the places they recommended, and 1 person discussed with me about the future cooperation in education field. These might be the evidence of the active feedback of the intervention.
At the present stage, I am dealing with the data and building the website for the archive (the link: https://archiwenzhou.cn). After the content has been well organized on the website and the branding for the website has been done, I will start the online promotion of the archive as the second intervention as well as collect more data through online networking with stakeholders to enrich the archive.
The first intervention of this project was impactful in involving stakeholders into the theme. Through long conversations and face-to-face contact with people, it was easy to build the trust with stakeholders and collect the in-depth content. However, this practice is not sustainable because of the geographical constraints. When the project is transplanted to the online platform, its effectiveness needs to be retested. To tackle this problem, I should consider the alternative archiving forms to raise flexibility of the project.
The second strength of this project is that it has the potential to build the future cooperation with governmental institutions such as newspaper and educational organization as well as private businesses like café and guesthouse. The educational value of the archive could be embedded in daily lives through the potential cooperation.
参考文献 Bibliography
Benoit, I.E. and Eveleigh, A. (2021) Participatory archives: Theory and practice. London: Facet.
Cuff, D. et al. (2020) Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Fiske, S. (1993) Social cognition and social perception, Annual Review of Psychology, 44, pp. 155-194.
Gabriel, M. (2006) Youth Migration and Social Advancement: How Young People Manage Emerging Differences between Themselves and their Hometown, Journal of Youth Studies, 9(1), pp. 33-46.
Huang, R. (2017) Wenzhou lao zhao pian: 1877-1978 [Wenzhou Old Photos: 1877-1978]. Beijing: China National Photographic Art Publishing House.
Madsen A., Grundtvig A. and Thorsen S. (2022) Soft City Sensing: A turn to computational humanities in data-driven urbanism, Cities, 126(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.103671
Nesmith, T. (2006). Reopening Archives: Bringing New Contextualities into Archival Theory and Practice. Archivaria, 60, pp. 259-274.
Roberts, L. (2015) Navigating the ‘archive city’: Digital spatial humanities and archival film practice, Convergence, 21(1), pp. 100-115. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856514560310
Runge A. et al. (2018) Can Depopulation Create Urban Sustainability in Postindustrial Regions? A Case from Poland, Sustainability, 10(12). doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124633
Shen, X (2023) Wenzhou ren de da li shi [The Great History of Wenzhou People]. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Ren Min Chu Ban She.
Si, R. et al. (2022) Visual philosophy: Thoughts on I and we. Zurich, Switzerland: Lars Müller Publishers.
Tsui, T. et al. (2021) The Role of Urban Manufacturing for a Circular Economy in Cities, Sustainability, 13(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010023
Zinn, H. (1977). Secrecy, Archives, and the Public Interest. The Midwestern Archivist, 2(2), pp.14-26.