The Infamous Ink

Routes, Not Places

Ecological and historical context of community aesthetics and identity

Environmental issues, specifically environmental justice, have become a focal point of both politics and the economy. What is lacking in this global discourse on the human element in ecology is its affects on the aesthetics of cities, the cultures of their residents and what to do with the vast expanses of brownfields and crumbling industrial infrastructures. A prime example of this oversight exists in Chicago.

Using political-economic and geo-ecological analysis, this project addresses the devastating effects that both the boom and bust of America’s industrial economy have had on the Chicago neighborhood of Hegewisch. Like J.B Jackson in his essay Several American Landscapes; I want to be able to interweave historical narrative and context with specific cultural nodes–the Acme Coke Plant, superfund site, Memorial Day massacre statue–and their effects on the Chicago neighborhood of Hegewisch’s identity and ecology.

Keywords: Cultural Landscape Narrative, Urban Aesthetics, Neighborhood Identity, Chicago, Ecology

Cultural landscapes studies (CLS) has only “officially” been around since 1951 and, like most cultural studies fields, it didn’t become popular in the world of academia until the late 1970s to early 1980s with the publishing of LANDSCAPES magazine by academic-turned-rancher J.B. Jackson. CLS is not the most popular branch of the growing field of American cultural studies however; that has not prevented a variety of articles, authors and styles from being published. What started out as Jackson’s determination to change how Americans looked at their “everyday, ordinary landscapes” had evolved into a recognized academic field with a methodology rooted in six tenets.

It is important, for this paper, future research (and I feel) everyone to have and adopt the CLS definition of landscape. The term “landscape”, according to Jackson and how it is used in the field, denotes the interaction of people and place; CLS strives to better understand the interactions of a social group (i.e. classes, ethnicities, specific cities) and its spaces, particularly the spaces to which the group belongs and from which its members derive some part of their identity[1]. According to Paul Groth and Todd Bressi’s book Understanding Ordinary Landscapes, the bulk of CLS—holding true to Jackson’s definition—has been focused most on the history of how people have used everyday space to establish their identity, articulate social relations and derive cultural meaning.

Personally, my fascination with CLS grew out of Dr. Douglas Powell’s class called “The Power of Place”. Through the course I was introduced to CLS authors, academics, and writing specifically J.B. Jackson, Paul Groth, and Mike Davis; whose methods are important to my work. Of the three authors listed I am firmly rooting the theoretical framework of my paper in two books by two different authors. The first, Understanding Ordinary Landscapes, was co-edited by Groth and is a must own reader for any cultural landscape scholar. The second is a book titled Landscapes edited by Ervin H. Zube and is a selection of J.B. Jackson’s writings; the one most influential to my work is titled Several American Landscapes1.

Groth, following in the tradition of Jackson, is a leading American CLS scholar and has, through the analysis of Jackson’s work, developed six tenets to keep in mind while developing and researching any landscape study2. I am confident this information will prove to be invaluable throughout this whole process.

Because my topic is specific, finding literature that directly relates to it has proven to be difficult. There have been many published studies on the neighborhood that have yielded lots of field specific data on the geography, ecology, and history of the region however; I’m finding it difficult to locate any sort analysis tying how specific political-economic eras have shaped the contemporary ecology, aesthetics and group identity of the neighborhood. This logistical fact though daunting, excites me; I will be one of the first people to attempt extrapolate some sort of meaning from the nearly four hundred years of European history that has unfolded there.

A visit to my neighborhood branch of the Chicago Public Library has revealed census data (raw numbers), labor histories, immigrant histories, geographic histories, naturalist histories and literally thousands of newspaper articles from both the “big” Chicago papers and the neighborhood paper. Friends and family have also mustered some support by sending or providing me with copies of articles they find online, which has been extremely helpful.

The abundance of raw data and histories is quite a daunting task to complete especially considering I do not know how much of it will be of any value to my project which is tending more toward theoretical and speculative CLS than the visual and concrete. On the other hand, I fear but not being meticulous about said data I will miss something that possesses the possibility of making my research “that much better”.

CLS theory books and readers are great so, too, are newspaper articles especially from local sources but I am trying to incorporate other contemporary sources like magazine articles.

In addition to lots of “book work” I have conducted an interview with urban planner Allan P. Mammoser, Executive Director of Southeast Environmental Taskforce; a not-for profit organization dedicated to the preservation of greenspace, the publics’ and ecological health. I believe more oral narratives will become important because they bring both credibility and the human element I am seeking to capture. I do not believe there is a better way to get a feeling for a landscape than talking to those people that shape it everyday.

During some of my trips to the neighborhood over the summer and while taking Cultural Studies Capstone I, I took pictures. I plan on taking more and am currently working to secure clearance or an escort to enter the Acme Coke Plant site. The photographs will be included many in my final essay in order to provide a visual context to my final project.

As it stands right now, I have more information than I know what to do with. It is now just a matter of sitting down and critically reading everything.