About the project
This National Science Foundation-funded project examines the legacies of racial and racialized violence, political geographies, and public memory in the American South, led by Co-PIs Dr. Jennie Burnet (Georgia State University) and Dr. Cheryl Rodriguez (University of South Florida).
The research addresses three key questions:
How do people remember past and ongoing racial violence through their embodied experiences and the built environment?
How have individuals and communities resisted or responded to this violence?
How can these histories be effectively communicated?
The Socio-cultural Anthropology Lab for Equity and Racial Justice (SCALER) at Georgia State University focuses on thirteen counties in Georgia, where student researchers conduct ethnographic research and analyze spatial data related to racial and systemic violence. This includes examining the impact of sundown towns and broader implications for public history and memory.
The collaborative project investigates how racial and systemic violence shapes political geographies, bodily experiences, and public histories in the U.S. South, using the movement of bodies to understand and challenge these legacies. The project aims to document how racial violence is embodied and to reconstruct public histories to address past and ongoing injustices.
Drawing on anthropology, history, geography, and performance arts, we explore diverse ways people in the South remember and respond to these legacies. Our goal is to create a Lived Memory Map of the U.S. South that visualizes the impact of racial and systemic violence, responses from African American communities including spaces of resistance, and efforts to confront these histories.
