Society for the Study of Social Problems Community Research and Development Division Fall 2018 Newsletter In this issue: Message from the Chair ... 2 2019 Annual Meeting Program Theme ... 3 CRD’s 2019 Conference Events ... 5 Call for Student Paper Submissions ... 6 Call for Community Partner Paper Award Submissions ... 6 Division Student Spotlight ... 7 SSSP CRD Member Publications ... 10 Special Calls, Invitations & Announcements ... 10 Message from the Chair By Meghan Ashlin Rich, University of Scranton Greetings Community Research and Development Division members! Last August, we had another excellent Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, which included 12 CRD Division-sponsored sessions and our first one-day Community-Based Participatory Action Research Workshop. The CBPAR workshop was attended by over 40 SSSP members and included interactive exercises that provided real-world examples of best practices in CBPAR. A huge thank you to the workshop organizers, Jess Lucero, Felicia Sullivan, and Charlotte Ryan, for putting in all the hard work of getting the workshop established and up-and-running! We will be offering the workshop again at the SSSP 2019 meeting. If you missed this year’s, you can register for it when you register for the annual meeting. The SSSP 2019 Call for Papers is now on the SSSP website at: https://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/755/fuseaction/ssspsession2.publicView. Our division is sponsoring 10 sessions, summarized on pg. 5. I encourage you to submit your papers/abstracts before the deadline of January 31. The theme for our August meeting is: “Illuminating the SOCIAL in Social Problems.” We are once again sponsoring two CRD awards: the Graduate Student Paper Award and the Community Partner Paper Award. I encourage you or your colleagues to apply by January 31. More information on the award application process can be found at: https://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/pageid/2155 and on pg. 6. In this newsletter, we highlight the work of a current graduate student member whose work exemplifies the division’s mission to engage with communities. We interview Amanda McMillan Lequieu, a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Sociology, about her work in public sociology and community studies. Lastly, I’d like to thank our new editor, Jennifer Skinnon, for her work on this newsletter. Jennifer is a PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts Boston whose ethnographic work investigates the maintenance of social and symbolic boundaries in gentrifying urban neighborhoods. She is also a recent SSSP and CRD member and is excited to get more involved in our community of activist scholars! Best wishes for the New Year, Meghan Ashlin Rich University of Scranton 2019 Annual Meeting Program Theme Illuminating the Social in Social Problems In his book, The Forest and the Trees: Sociology as Life, Practice, and Promise, the late Allan G. Johnson wrote that the most important thing sociology teaches us is that we are always participating in social systems that are larger than ourselves. Because we are constantly shaping and being shaped by social systems, individualistic models do not work for understanding the social world or for solving social problems. Indeed, Johnson tells us that if we want to solve social problems, we need to understand, explain, and address what is “social” about those problems. The theme for the 2019 SSSP meetings is a call for social justice theorists, empiricists, practitioners, activists, policy makers, and analysts, to draw deeply and widely on sociological teachings to illuminate the social in all aspects of social problems. If our founding scholars were correct, then our ability to illuminate the social in social problems will help solve some of the major social problems of our time. The move away from individualistic models is critical in such an illumination. Individualist models focus on the characteristics of individuals without looking at the relationships that connect individuals to each other, to groups, or to larger society. Johnson reminds us that people do not exist outside of systems, and systems cannot function without people. And yet, “people are not systems, and systems are not people,” but the relationship between the two is critical to understanding the social world and the problems caused by unequal power relationships institutionalized throughout history. In other words, a forest is not just a bunch of individual trees, but rather “a collection of trees that exist in a particular relation to one another.” Similarly, society is not simply a collection of unrelated individuals, but rather a collection of people that exist in a particular relation to one another; and those relationships create the very essence of what is “social” in our lives. So when we illuminate the social in social problems, we are illuminating the patterned, structural, and institutionalized relationships that exist among us and connect us together to create our larger social world. Because of an increasing focus on individualistic models, public discourse lacks a social structural analysis regarding race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, religion, mass incarceration, and immigration, to name a few. For the 2019 SSSP meetings, I call on our membership to reclaim and refocus that public discourse. Let us carefully consider the connective spaces between the trees that create the larger forests; the spaces in which social problems are embedded and perpetuated by unequal power relationships. Let us push forward our disciplinary roots to explain what is social about social problems, so that what we understand to be obvious becomes obvious to everyone around us and becomes part of popular thought and parlance. As a community of social science and social justice researchers, activists, and practitioners, I invite the SSSP membership to join together during the 2019 meetings in New York City to use our collective sociological imaginations to explore each corner of the social world. Our exploration should have the explicit and strategic intention of illuminating the social in social problems and applying what we study and practice in pursuit of becoming a more just global society. While in New York City, explore this great urban forest as well. Go north on the Manhattan island to Harlem and see the birthplace of some of the greatest American culture. Travel to the southern part of the island and discover how Wall Street got its name. While there, find out where over 10,000 people of African descent were buried in the 1700s, or visit the areas where immigrants lived in tenement homes and started small businesses. Take a ferry to Ellis Island or Liberty Island. Stroll or bike through Central Park, walk the High Line, or visit any number of the green spaces in the City. Take a subway to Brooklyn to see Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party.” Travel to Greenwich Village and check out where a significant part of the modern LGBTQ movement began. And of course, take in the many shows and good eats that NYC has to offer. As you wander around, think about how the spaces of the city connect the seemingly separate neighborhoods and histories to create one large and complex city. Just as the possibilities of exploring and connecting the many spaces in NYC are endless, so are the possibilities of exploring and connecting the endless spaces of the social world. And as NYC becomes a more illuminated city to you as you explore, let us use our expertise in August 2019 to help illuminate the social in social problems with an intention of informing the rest of the world. Nancy J. Mezey, SSSP President Monmouth University Community-Based Participatory Action Research Workshop (limit 50): Monday, August 12, 2019, 9:00am–4:30pm, Location: Roosevelt Hotel, New York City Registration Fee: $50 for employed registrants or $25 for unemployed/activists/students The Community Research & Development Division is hosting an interactive workshop for researchers who use or are interested in community-based participatory action research. The workshop will (1) offer a foundational orientation to the purpose and process of CBPAR; and (2) provide a context within which CBPAR scholars, both new and old, can learn from each other and build a stronger network. This one-day workshop will be divided into two sections. In the morning, Section I will cover the following topics: (1) What is CBPAR and Why Do It?; (2) Capacity Building and Community Partnerships; and (3) CBPAR Methodology – Balancing Methodological Rigor with Community Need. In the afternoon, Section II will cover the following topics: (1) Data dissemination: To Whom, How, and Where; (2) Publishing and Funding: Challenges and Opportunities; and (3) Maintaining Partnerships and Building Steam. The workshop will be collaboratively delivered by Drs. Charlotte Ryan, Felicia Sullivan, and Jessica Lucero. The workshop will be interactive in nature and provide opportunities for attendees to discuss their CBPAR research ideas and receive feedback. For researchers with prior training and/or experience, there will be a breakout session provided to discuss their work and concerns. Workshop fee includes morning coffee. Community Research and Development Division Sessions at 2019 SSSP Annual Conference Session # Session Title Sponsor(s) Organizer(s) 1 Community-Led Revitalization versus Gentrification CRD Rich, Meghan Ashlin meghan.rich@scranton.edu 2 Integration of Immigrants and Refugees into Local Communities in the New Immigration Era-THEMATIC CRD Majka, Theo J. tmajka1@udayton.edu 3 Rural Communities in the US and Beyond CRD Francis, Robert rfranc15@jhu.edu 4 Community-Based Youth Organizations and Social Change CRD & Conflict, Social Action, and Change Sullivan, Felicia M. fsullivan@jff.org 5 CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Human Subjects Research: Tricky Subject, Tricky Research, and the IRB CRD & Drinking and Drugs Roddy, Juliette jroddy@umich.edu 6 Education, Community, and Place CRD & Educational Problems Miller, Julia M. jmmi245@g.uky.edu 7 CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Community-Based Ethnographies-THEMATIC CRD & Institutional Ethnography & Social Problems Theory Hastings, Colin colinjh@yorku.ca 8 CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Communities and the Law CRD & Law and Society Lucero, Jessica L. Jessica.lucero@usu.edu 9 CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Community-Based Learning and Community Partnerships CRD & Teaching Social Problems Stanlick, Sarah E. ses409@lehigh.edu 10 CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Community Engaged Teaching about Youth, Aging, and Matters of Life and Death CRD & Teaching Social Problems & Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Leviss, Perri S. perri.leviss001@umb.edu Call for Student Paper Competition Submissions Our Division announces its 2019 Graduate Student Paper Competition. Paper topics can focus on various aspects of the community, including its capacity, development, renewal, and its relationship with other social issues or problems. Qualitative and quantitative empirical analyses, applied research and theoretical papers are welcome. To be eligible for submission, a paper must not be published nor accepted for publication. Papers must be student-authored; they may be authored by a single student or co-authored by more than one student, but may not be co-authored by a faculty member or other non-student. Papers must not exceed 25 double-spaced pages (including all notes, references, and tables), and should include a brief abstract. To be eligible for the award, the author(s) must make a commitment to present the paper at a session during the 2019 SSSP Annual Meeting in New York City. To be considered, submit (a) a copy of the manuscript, (b) a cover letter specifying that the paper is to be considered in the Community Research and Development Division Graduate Student Paper Competition, and (c) a letter from each author’s advisor certifying the person’s status as a student and including some brief comments about the research. All materials must be submitted electronically to the Annual Meeting Call for Papers on the SSSP conference website by January 31, 2019 and also sent to the Committee Chair, Dr. Felicia Sullivan at fsullivan@jff.org. Please note that students may only submit to one division. The winner will receive a $100 cash award, a one-year membership to SSSP, conference registration fees, and a plaque of recognition at the conference awards ceremony. Call for Community Partner Paper Award Submissions We are currently accepting submissions for our fourth annual Community Partner Paper Competition. Consistent with our division’s mission, this paper award is intended to recognize rigorous academic work that has practical implications for members of marginalized communities and specifically, to celebrate community-engaged work. Paper topics can focus on various social issues and problems related to community, such as the causes and consequences of communities’ exclusion or marginalization from processes and resources, the capacities and strengths of communities and community movements, and the development and changes within communities. Qualitative and quantitative empirical analyses, applied research and theoretical papers are welcome. To be eligible for submission, a paper must not be published or accepted for publication. Papers must be co-authored with a community partner; they may be co-authored by more than one faculty member and/or student, but must include at least one community partner. Community partners are characterized by any community-based entity that is outside of the academy. Papers must not exceed 25 double-spaced pages (including all notes, references, and tables), and should include a brief abstract. To be eligible for the award, the author(s) must make a commitment to present the paper at a session during the 2019 SSSP Annual Meeting in New York City. To be considered, submit (a) a copy of the manuscript, (b) a cover letter specifying that the paper is to be considered in the Community Research and Development Division Community Partner Paper Competition, and (c) a brief letter from the community partner commenting on his or her role in the paper. All materials must be submitted electronically to the Annual Meeting Call for Papers on the SSSP conference website by January 31, 2019 and also sent to the Committee Chair, Dr. Sarah Stanlick at ses409@lehigh.edu. The winner will receive a $100 cash award and a plaque of recognition at the Community Research and Development business meeting. Fall 2018 Student Spotlight Amanda McMillan Lequieu Amanda McMillan Lequieu is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2018, Amanda held the position of Visiting Scholar with the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and Visiting PhD Student at the Max Planck Sciences-Po Center on Coping with Instability in Markets. Her research focuses on the links between culture, place, and economic change in low-income regions. Specifically, she is interested in how place-based, working-class communities adapt to globalizing economies and changing environments over time, from farmers and consumers to urban steelworkers and rural iron miners. Amanda analyzes processes and trajectories of economic history, lived experiences of cultural negotiation, landscape-scale change spanning rural and urban regions, and political economies of growth and decline. Amanda is the 2018 recipient of the Braverman Paper Award for the Labor Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. In 2017, she won the Outstanding Student Achievement Award for the Sociological Practice and Public Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. She has also won several awards for her paper, ""We Made the Choice to Stick Out": Negotiating a Stable Home in the Rural, American Rust Belt," including the Genevieve Gorst Herfurth Award (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison), the P.K. New Award (Society for Applied Anthropology), the Larson Graduate Student Paper Award (Rural Sociological Society), and the Wimberley Student Paper Competition (Rural Sociological Society's Community, Health, and Family Research Interest Group). Amanda holds a B.A. in Politics and Environmental Studies from Messiah College in Pennsylvania and earned her M.S. in Community and Environmental Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what brought you to your graduate studies? I grew up in a blue-collar, rural community—a former coal-mining village (population eight hundred) on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our village is strong in spirit but poor in infrastructure: we lack police, infrastructure, and a unified sewage system. In heavy rains, the streams turn orange from iron oxide seeping from abandoned mines. By the time I was in high school, most of our stores had closed, jobs had faded, and waterways were toxic. These experiences drive my academic and personal curiosity about the intersections between people, their environments, and the economies that use and change them both. I want to broaden our understanding of the environmental and economic inequalities facing “dying,” working-class communities. So, using qualitative and historical research methods, I explore sociological questions of work, home, and the environment across low-income communities—both rural and urban. What is the focus of your doctoral dissertation research? My research interrogates how historical structures of capitalism–social, spatial, and economic–inform localized outcomes and lived experiences of home, community, and environment. My dissertation, entitled, “Work, Home, and the Nature of Connection in the American Rustbelt,” asks how the mobility of capitalism is experienced by long-term residents in regions once defined by natural resources. Drawing from archival, ethnographic, and interview data collected across rural and urban communities once central to a Midwestern steel commodity chain, this dissertation contends that the processes of capitalism not only take place, they make place. The first half of this dissertation is historical, demonstrating how early 20th-century, industrial firms in Chicago’s urban steel neighborhood and Wisconsin’s rural iron mining belt constructed work and home for laborers by establishing both infrastructures and social safety nets in previously undeveloped regions. I argue that political ecologies and economies established during the American industrial revolution continue to structure the landscapes and lived experiences of the residentially stable, working-class. The second half of the project turns to contemporary data, articulating how, even decades after industrial collapse, the place-making work of industrial companies continues to shape residents’ stories about identity, environment, and community development. Although my interviewees experienced both the fall of the blue-collar, middle class and increased environmental health crises linked to living and working in industrial landscapes, many still argue that the best use of urban brownfields or rural mining sites would be a second generation of the same industry. This research is funded in part by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Distinguished Graduate Fellowship and the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies. What made you interested in engaging in public sociology? Public sociology is important to my research approach because of my working-class background and my relationships with study participants and communities. I am committed to creating new knowledge with the communities I study by gathering individual and collective stories. I then situate these narratives within broader social history to help my research participants better understand their own experiences. I make this new knowledge accessible to non-academic audiences through public talks, newspaper articles, and radio shows. For instance, in coordination with study participants from my rural dissertation case, I produced a radio podcast exploring themes of home, identity, and economic futures. This segment was then broadcast on the local AM station in Iron County. This project was funded by a competitive grant at the University of Wisconsin and was granted an award by the Sociological Practice and Public Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association in 2017. Where do you see your work going in the future? Since broadly, I am concerned with how capitalism produces and reproduces social, economic, and environmental inequalities, I will seek projects that interrogate puzzles of the relationship between place-based, working-class communities and companies. I'm fascinated with how firms pursuing new businesses that significantly transform landscapes (such as big, urban office parks, or rural mines) in the United States attempt to earn trust and gain legitimacy among people who call that place home. Right now, I'm starting a project exploring how company strategies to gain social buy-in for industrial projects differ along lines of race, class, and indigeneity--it's a topic brought up by my dissertation research (and that I lightly touch on in my Journal of Rural Studies article), but with much room for empirical and theoretical exploration. Do you have any advice for fellow graduate students? Build a community--a team of support, accountability, and trust. This can be other students in your program, in conference sections, or even online. There are episodes of graduate school that can be very isolating--and other seasons that are delightful. Cultivating a good team to support each other through this prolonged career preparation is key. Work hard to develop writing and research chops: swap early versions of papers with colleagues, even if they're "not good enough." If a friend gets an article into a good journal, or wins a competitive research grant, buy them a cup of coffee and ask them to walk you through the process. Reverse outline articles or books that move you. And ask for help--always ask for help. Finally, try to learn how the "sausage gets made"--for instance, how sessions at ASA are proposed (both in sections and as Special Sessions), or how journal editors are chosen, or what a good peer review looks like. Apply for the grants, no matter how small, and send in your papers for paper awards. Be curious and confident that you can contribute to these professionalization processes even as a grad student. SSSP CRD Member Accomplishments: Publications Squires, Gregory D., ed. 2017. The Fight for Fair Housing: Causes, Consequences and Future Implications of the 1968 Federal Fair Housing Act. New York, NY: Routledge. Moulden, Domonic T., Gregory D. Squires, and Aristotle Theresa. 2018. "The Right to Stay Put." The Washington Post. Retrieved Oct. 30, 2018 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-right-to-stay-put/2018/09/21/395cc5d8-b90f-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b9aa8c4dd62a) Special Calls, Invitations, and Announcements Job Announcement Sociology/Social Psychology and Quantitative Methods Assistant Professor Tenure Track Position. California State University, San Bernardino. The Department of Sociology invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor position. We seek candidates with specializations in social psychology and quantitative methods, with secondary emphases in stratification and racial and ethnic minorities (e.g., Latinx sociology, Black/African American studies, Native American studies). Preference will be given to those with evidence of grant funding or potential for future extramural funding. https://agency.governmentjobs.com/csusb/job_bulletin.cfm?jobID=2156628&sharedWindow=0 Society for the Study of Social Problems Community Research and Development Division