Community Research and Development Division Fall 2021 Newsletter Message from the Chair…………………………………………………………………………….………….…2 2022 Annual Meeting Program Theme………………………………………………………………….………3 CRD 2022 Conference Sessions………………………………………………………………………….……..5 Call for Graduate Student and Community Partner Paper Award Submissions……………………………6 SSSP CRD Member Spotlight……………………………………………………………………………………7 SSSP CRD Member Accomplishments…………………………………………………………………………8 Special Calls, Invitations, and Announcements………………………………………………………………..9 Message from the Chair  By Thomas Piñeros Shields As I write this, President Biden has signed the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law. The new law invests over a trillion dollars into roads, bridges and waterways, as well as emphasizing climate change mitigation, resilience and equity.  As part of this plan, there are a billion dollars set aside to dismantle some of the literal structural barriers of racism – such as the notorious overpasses on the parkways of Long Island, NY that prevented buses from New York City from transporting Black and Latinx populations to beaches.  For sociologists with a commitment to social justice, these policies remind us that physical and social infrastructure are interrelated with social, cultural and political inequities.  As members of the Community Research and Development division, we are in a position to better shed light on the lived experiences of community members and help ameliorate the impacts and conditions of structural inequity. Our work brings scholarship into a dialectic relationship with activism and communities who face marginalization and oppression to advance social justice.  Thank you for being part of this division and such important work. Please take the time to read this newsletter that our newsletter editor, Peter Kent-Stoll has prepared (THANK YOU PETER!!). In particular, you will see that our members have developed a full slate of panels, most of which relate directly to the theme of the 2022 SSSP Conference The Sociological Reimagination: From Moments to Momentum by Noreen Sugrue, President of SSSP. As Noreen notes, after two years of virtual conferences during a global pandemic, the 2022 SSSP conference promises to be a new beginning for SSSP. Our members will be organizing some exciting panels and critical dialogues on themes related to racial reckoning, immigrant activism, gentrification, employment, social infrastructure and climate change, rural crime and drug use, the mortgage crisis and community-based cultural work. Also, we are proud to spotlight and will continue (for the fourth time) to sponsor the pre-conference workshop on community-based participatory action research led by Jess Lucero (Utah State), Charlotte Ryan (UMass Lowell), Sarah Stanlick (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), and Felicia M. Sullivan (JFF).  As they say, community based participatory action research is more than a method, it is a “way of doing.” Finally, I want to encourage graduate students to submit a paper to the Community Research and Development Division Graduate Student Paper Award Competition and all CRD members who work with community partners on research to submit a paper to the Community Research and Development Division Community Partner Paper Award Competition. If you do not submit, we also have room to serve on either committee.     2022 Annual Meeting Program Theme  Noreen M. Sugrue, SSSP President         The Sociological Reimagination: From Moments to  Momentum In 2001, Robert Perrucci articulated a vision of SSSP and its membership whereby both become consequential actors in public discussions and policy debates. Two decades later, the work and activism of SSSP and its members is needed more than ever. Our entry into a post-pandemic world provides us with an opportunity to recalibrate our priorities as scholars, policy analysts, teachers, and activists. We are being given an opportunity to embrace this period, with a clear sense of needed pathways toward change. Addressing and redressing today’s problems requires the full and central participation of SSSP members. SSSP scholars, be they in the academy, government, or the private sector, are uniquely qualified to play a formative role in defining, designing, and implementing the policies required for a new beginning, a new hope, and a new and fairer social order. In his widely acclaimed book Capitalism in the 21st Century, Thomas Piketty contends that in order to address one of this century’s greatest threats - growing inequality – more than economists are required at the “solutions table”. This expanded solutions table is necessary if policy solutions to inequalities, inequalities, and injustices are to be based on a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the social world in all its dimensions. And who better to provide such descriptions and prescriptive policy actions than sociologists, especially those of us in SSSP? However, we also must recognize that as sociologists we will not be spontaneously invited to the solutions table. In order to secure a seat at that table, we must deploy our research findings along salient avenues of public discussion and debate. We are called to translate our research findings into concrete prescriptions for change, and thereby infuse the public process with the results of our research. But sitting at the solutions table is one thing; we also must ensure that we have a suitable microphone in order to amplify our voice. Our unique voice can illuminate the issues and problems, as well as provide solutions aimed at both rectifying problems and guiding the reimagination of how a more equitable social order can be achieved. We seek our seat and our microphone not for our own careers but rather for the sake of the country and the world. In many ways, the 2022 meeting is a new beginning. COVID recently has dominated the social landscape, but we now hope to enter a post-pandemic world. It is a world in which a virus exacerbated and exposed the issues and problems that we all know need to be fixed. It is a world in which some communities are far more broken than before the pandemic, and where the endemic inequities and injustices have been laid bare for all to see. Recently, we have experienced moments that vividly illustrated the inequities and injustices we know all too well. The examples also are all too familiar: COVID, gun violence, attacks on the rights of women and LGBTQIA persons, anti-Semitism, structural racism, inhumane treatment of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, as well as inequitable access to health care, poverty, the killings of George Floyd, Adam Toledo, and countless other Blacks and Latinos at the hands of law enforcement, and climate change, in addition to the ever growing inter- and intra- country inequities. Our experiences with these moments and our entry into the post-pandemic world provide us with an opportunity to recalibrate our priorities as scholars, policy analysts, teachers, and activists. As we enter this period, there is a clear sense that this is the time for change. There is a willingness on the part of many, particularly younger people, to realign our priorities and social structures, re-prioritize how we spend resources, re-define what it means to identify a society as just, re-distribute goods and services with a commitment to equity, and re-evaluate our programs and policies through an intersectional lens. I invite each of you to join us in Los Angeles – the city of angels – in order to further a dialogue aimed at social change and action rooted in data and theory. The 2022 meeting also provides opportunities to define, energize, and commit to concrete social actions and policy work. It is the time to turn the multiple moments on our social landscape into momentum – momentum for social justice, momentum for change, momentum for SSSP scholars to move from analysis to action, and momentum to make SSSP not simply the Society for the Study of Social Problems, but also into a society that designs solutions. Noreen M. Sugrue, SSSP President  The Latino Policy Forum and The Council for International Neonatal Nurses Artwork created by Veronica I. Giraldo-Puent 2022 Annual Meeting Planning Committee Jackie Krasas, Chair, Lehigh University Heather M. Dalmage, Roosevelt University Call for Papers for 2022 SSSP Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, August 5-7 2022 SSSP will be holding its 72nd Annual Meeting in-person in Los Angeles at the Omni Hotel at California Park Plaza from August 5 through 7, 2022. Remember to submit your papers or extended abstracts by Jan. 15, 2022 at 11:59 PM ET! SSSP’s Call for Papers can be found here. Below is a list of the sessions CRD is sponsoring or co-sponsoring that you can submit to. All CRD Sessions at 2022 SSSP Annual Meeting Session Title Sponsors (s) Organizer(s) CRITICAL DIALOGUE: (Mis)Trust and Community Development in a Time of Racial Reckoning -THEMATIC CRD Teresa Irene Gonzales (UMass Lowell) Gentrification, Community Change, and Displacement: Implications for Policy and Practice -THEMATIC CRD Diana Cordova-Cobo (Teachers College, Columbia) (Re)imagining Immigrants Activism and Participation in Politics -THEMATIC                       CRD Olanike Ojelabi (UMass                Boston) Pathways to Re-entry: Employment CRD; Crimes and Juvenile Delinquency; Labor Studies Michelle Estes (Oklahoma State University) CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Researchers with Lived Experience and Participants as Research Partners -THEMATIC CRD & Drinking and Drugs Alex S. Bennet and ;   David Frank (NYU) CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Rural Crime, Drug Use, and Justice CRD; Drinking and Drugs; Law and Society Michael Branch (Syracuse University) CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Social Infrastructure and Race in a Changing Climate CRD; Environment and Technology; Sociology and Social Welfare Clare Cannon (UC Davis) and Greer Ayanna Hamilton (Boston University) The Impending Mortgage Crisis and Racial Inequalities in Housing CRD and Poverty, Class, and Inequality Kenya L. Goods (Howard University) and Fitore Hyseni (Syracuse University) Community Cultural Work: Sites of Contention and Community Building-THEMATIC CRD; Sport, Leisure, and the Body; Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Michael O. Johnson  (William Penn University) Activist Café: Community Activists and Scholars in Dialogue CRD & Conflict, Social Action, and Change Kimberly Lucas (MetroLab Network) Call for Paper Award Submissions The CRD Division sponsors a graduate student paper award and a community partner paper award. Take a look at the call for papers below and consider submitting a paper. The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2022. Community Research and Development Division Graduate Student Paper The Community Research and Development Division announces its 2022 Graduate Student Paper Competition. Paper topics can focus on various aspects of communities, including their capacity, development, renewal, and 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 2022 SSSP Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. 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 short 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 15, 2022 and also sent to the Committee Chair, Dr. Michael O. Johnston at johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu. Please note that students may only submit to one division. The winner will receive a $100 cash award, a one-year student membership to SSSP, conference registration fees, and a plaque of recognition at the conference awards ceremony. Community Research and Development Division Community Partner Paper The Community Research and Development Division announces its 2022 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 2022 SSSP Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. 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 15, 2022 and also sent to the Committee Chair, Dr. Thomas Piñeros Shields at Thomas_PinerosShields@uml.edu. The winner will receive a $100 cash award and a plaque of recognition at the Community Research and Development Division business meeting. SSSP CRD Member Spotlight For the Fall spotlight, we spoke with Jess Lucero (Utah State), Charlotte Ryan (UMass Lowell), Sarah Stanlick (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), and Felicia M. Sullivan (JFF) about the Community-Based Participatory Action Research Workshop they are leading at SSSP’s 2022 Annual Meeting. For those not familiar with Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR), how would you describe it? What are its main tenets and goals?   While in many ways CBPAR is often considered a methodology, it is really a “way of doing.” At its core, it is a partnership approach to research that equitably involves a range of engaged actors such as community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in ALL aspects of the research process, including defining the research agenda. CBPAR projects adapt to the situation at hand. Collaborations can be partial or full, short-term or ongoing, depending on the partners' needs, resources, and time frame.  But in every case, community partners have been at the table to set priorities and address critical decisions. Equity, reciprocity, and cooperative action are some key tenets with the goal to unearth new knowledge and understanding that can inform and energize action.   What led you to developing a CBPAR workshop for SSSP?   The workshop in 2022 will be the fourth time the CBPAR workshop is held at the SSSP Annual meeting.  The idea for a workshop started as a conversation Char Ryan, Jess Lucero and Felicia Sullivan had after a CRD division business meeting.  We felt like there was a need and desire to create a more formal space to talk about CBPAR as a legitimate methodological approach to sociological research. We also knew there were ways this could be done that spoke to rigor without losing the strong and important connections researchers and community partners form. We engage others in exploring that tension between authentic community-based research efforts and academic rigor.   What were some of the best highlights from the 2021 workshop and what aspects, if any, will change this year?   2021 was the first time we offered the CBPAR workshop virtually.  We also welcomed in a new co-facilitator, Sarah Stanlick. We wanted to rework the format to ensure that we were creating a really engaging space for colleagues to discuss and connect, while at the same time addressing the core concepts of our original design.  Sarah was able to also bring in some fresh ideas that brought the workshop into some new places.  Our hope for 2022 is that we will be back to an in-person gathering. However, even if it is in-person, there may be a desire to incorporate some virtual components to make it a hybrid event.  We will see.  We are also hoping to bring in at least one new co-facilitator.    What aspects of CBPAR do you think are most pertinent for researchers, activists, and community-members during this specific historical, social, and political moment? What are the most pressing challenges that CBPAR faces?   For those engaged in CBPAR, regardless of where they are coming from, partnering in an active way and fostering trust and respect are critical. Creating authentic space for all to engage and be included is the ideal.  But it is also very hard to maintain. This working, like any partnering work, requires constant and consistent attention and engagement. Apart from the struggle to maintain meaningful and dynamic partnerships over time, CBPAR faces a number of other challenges. Differing cultures and objectives that exist between community-based and academic work. Skepticism of the holders and purveyors of “legitimacy” and “rigor” who question CBPAR as a valid method that meets the demands of peer review. SSSP CRD Member Accomplishments     Gonzales, Teresa Irene. 2021. Building a Better Chicago: Race & Community Resistance to Urban Redevelopment. NYU Press. Link to Publisher Page: https://nyupress.org/9781479813568/building-a-better-chicago/   Despite promises from politicians, nonprofits, and government agencies, Chicago’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods remain plagued by poverty, failing schools, and gang activity. In Building a Better Chicago, Teresa Irene Gonzales shows us how, and why, these promises have gone unfulfilled, revealing tensions between neighborhood residents and the institutions that claim to represent them. Johnston, Michael. (forthcoming). Tug Cities: Community Media Representations of Place and  Identity at a Tug of War Festival. Lexington. Tug Cities, to be released in the summer of 2022, is about media representations of an interstate tug of war festival that occurs annually between Iowa and Illinois. The Great River Tug Festival is an interstate festival that was founded as a recreational activity for locals and has become a vital part of the local economy in  these two tug cities. This book shows how the Great River Tug Festival is embedded in the environment, economy, local politics, and body politics (gender and age in particular).  Anura Widana, with the Management Support Consultancy (MSC) established under the Dasu Hydropower project in Pakistan, is leading an external monitoring and evaluation consulting team to assess impacts of the project. The project, led by the Water and Power Development Authority in Pakistan has been in progress since 2012. Some 3,000 households will be relocated from the impact area through implementation of a resettlement program and are being provided with support to help with relocation and to rebuild livelihoods. Yet many social problems are emerging. Management Support Consultancy is monitoring the resettlement program to  evaluate its  effectiveness as well as of the support program. Some of the work that Dr. Widana's team has been conducting can be found  here. Please share news of publications, dissertations, job changes, upcoming conferences, and other relevant updates with your CRD Division colleagues. Send information about recent news to Peter Kent-Stoll at pkentstoll@umass.edu  for inclusion in the next division newsletter. Special Calls, Invitations, and Announcements Would you like to contribute to the CRD Division newsletter? We are looking for interviews with scholars, practitioners, or community activists working on community-related issues and short essays on timely community-related research. Interested? Please email Peter Kent-Stoll at pkentstoll@umass.edu  Society for the Study of Social Problems Community and Research Development Division https://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/pageId/1329/m/464 Fall 2021 Newsletter