Choosing Here
The Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area is home to over 400,000 people. They have chosen to make their lives here for many different reasons. Many people are here because they have made a conscious choice about where they call home. Others have remained because they had to, unable to leave because of financial or familial reasons. Many have left and returned. Still others came from elsewhere and have stayed. Some people can trace their roots back hundreds of years, while others are newcomers. All have a story to tell about why they choose here.
Gathering these stories helps us to understand a bit more about the MSNHA. Each Choosing Here participant participates in an oral history interview, writes an essay about a place that matters to them, and then is photographed in this space. The places participants talk about during their interviews are also often Hidden Spaces and fascinating locations on our landscapes. This process offers an important glimpse into how people define and use identity, as well as how landscape plays a significant role in this process.
