Mode of Program Participation
Community Organizing and Educational Programming
Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Keep it the Same: Exploring a Mountain Community’s Ideals through Sound
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
For ten years I have collected audio in a North Georgia community on a mission to preserve the wisdom of the older adult generation who guided its formation. The underlying purpose of capturing audio explores oral history as a resource for community decision-making and strategic planning. Based on a work in progress, this presentation will share audio excerpts of natural sounds, music, and interviews to experience people’s relationship to place, and identify community visions, values, and environmental understanding. A journalist in the community wrote, “It is a comfort somehow to find a place that does not change.” A prominent ideal in a mostly non-residential community, a sense of an unchanging place is key for finding solace, peace, and togetherness in the rustic shared spaces of lake, meadow, and forest. Community surveys, meeting minutes, and other written records exhibit the tensions in managing change as population grows. How can sound and voices illuminate these emotions? Does oral history methodology matter? What is an approach to reasonable change when an ideal is “keep it the same?" Could an audio-visual platform serve as a resource for planning? At stake is a potential loss of environmental knowledge and guidance for sustaining the place against external and internal forces of change, including development, bureaucratic regulations, and technology. As the community faces the loss of an aging generation, capturing their voices with environmental sounds is a visceral experience of the magic of place, in an attempt to preserve its identity.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Emma Kiser is a Master’s student at University of Kentucky interested in the intersection of oral history and the natural environment under the guidance of Dr. Kathryn Newfont.
Keep it the Same: Exploring a Mountain Community’s Ideals through Sound
For ten years I have collected audio in a North Georgia community on a mission to preserve the wisdom of the older adult generation who guided its formation. The underlying purpose of capturing audio explores oral history as a resource for community decision-making and strategic planning. Based on a work in progress, this presentation will share audio excerpts of natural sounds, music, and interviews to experience people’s relationship to place, and identify community visions, values, and environmental understanding. A journalist in the community wrote, “It is a comfort somehow to find a place that does not change.” A prominent ideal in a mostly non-residential community, a sense of an unchanging place is key for finding solace, peace, and togetherness in the rustic shared spaces of lake, meadow, and forest. Community surveys, meeting minutes, and other written records exhibit the tensions in managing change as population grows. How can sound and voices illuminate these emotions? Does oral history methodology matter? What is an approach to reasonable change when an ideal is “keep it the same?" Could an audio-visual platform serve as a resource for planning? At stake is a potential loss of environmental knowledge and guidance for sustaining the place against external and internal forces of change, including development, bureaucratic regulations, and technology. As the community faces the loss of an aging generation, capturing their voices with environmental sounds is a visceral experience of the magic of place, in an attempt to preserve its identity.
