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Students and Community Service: Internships in Public Anthropology Mary
Roffers Abstract: Public anthropology is an arena that gives students from various disciplines, the opportunity to serve the community by applying anthropological theory and methodology to actual community projects. Simultaneously, the very nature of such projects requires students to become involved with government agencies, grass-roots groups and community residents. This involvement increases the visibility of anthropology and makes it more accessible to the public. Urban Anthropology Inc. (UrbAn), a not-for-profit organization, has enlisted the assistance of student interns from colleges and universities in southern Wisconsin in a variety of projects. This presentation is an overview of two such projects. The first, City Cultures in Wisconsin, an educational video series using micro-narratives collected from Wisconsin’s urban sub-cultural groups, aims to promote cultural exchange and increase awareness of Wisconsin’s rich cultural roots. A second, the Neighborhood Eco-cultural Squares to Integrate Neighborhood Greening (NESTING) project is redeveloping vacant lots into neighborhood squares, and is being studied by the National Parks as a model that may change participatory land use patterns nationwide. Public anthropology is an arena that can give students from various academic disciplines the opportunity to serve the community by joining theory, development, empirical research, learning in the field and public service, as they work on projects that are valuable to the community. Simultaneously, the very nature of such projects requires students to become involved with government agencies, grass-roots groups and community residents. This involvement increases the visibility of anthropology and makes it more accessible to the public. Urban Anthropology, Inc., otherwise known as UrbAn, is a community based not-for-profit organization dedicated to the celebration of cultural diversity and the use of a holistic approach in addressing problems in urban areas. UrbAn applies the practices and theory from anthropology to community based projects and issues. In working on these projects, UrbAn enlists the assistance of student interns from colleges and universities in southern Wisconsin as well as community volunteers. This paper presents an overview of two such projects. The first, City Cultures in Wisconsin, an educational video series using micro-narratives collected from Wisconsin’s urban sub-cultural groups, aims to promote cultural exchange and increase awareness of Wisconsin’s rich cultural roots. A second, the Neighborhood Eco-cultural Squares to Integrate Neighborhood Greening (NESTING) projects goal is to redevelop vacant lots into neighborhood squares. NESTING is being studied by the National Parks as a model that may change participatory land use patterns nationwide. The first video in the City Cultures in Wisconsin series, The Central City Irish, was completed earlier this year. It is a portrait of Milwaukee’s Irish central city. Like all videos in the series, the first 200 copies were distributed, free of charge, to community and educational organizations in Milwaukee, including the Milwaukee Public Schools and Milwaukee’s Interfaith Conference. Presently UrbAn is working on a five video sub-set of this series called Contributions of Color, which highlight some of Milwaukee’s minority populations. The preliminary work on the African American component of the series has been completed and videotaping is on its way. Work on the Native American video began this semester. Interns participating in City Cultures in Wisconsin and other projects work under the supervision of UrbAn’s executive director, anthropologist, Dr. Jill Florence-Lackey. Interns and Dr. Florence-Lackey meet weekly to discuss the progress of the various projects. As most of the student interns receive university or college credit for their work, a professor from the school they attend supervises their academic progress on a project as well. Prior to the collection of the micro-narratives used in the production of the videos, interns do background research on the ethnic group or neighborhood under study and the group’s impact on and contributions to the community. Through their research, students learn about the historical, economic and cultural contexts of urban human problems, which are reflected in the questions that are written as a part of the collection of the micro-narratives. A snowball-sampling plan is used as approximately 40 interviews are conducted and tape recorded. The tape-recorded interviews are reviewed for themes that best reflect the interview findings overall. Interns then videotape a limited number of interviewees whose responses best characterize those themes. During the production of these videos students have interviewed members of Milwaukee’s city government, grass-roots organizers and community residents, many of whom have had no prior experience with anthropologists, or anthropological methods and theories. At the same time, interns are able to make practical use of methods such as ethnographic interviewing, videography and qualitative analysis that they had previously only read about or used in class projects. The videos in the series have been used in presentations at The Wisconsin Social Studies Teacher’s Conference and during in-service programs at area schools. These presentations contribute to the visibility of anthropology and make it more accessible to the community. In addition, they serve to promote UrbAn, and demonstrate ways that ideas from anthropology can be used to help grade school and high school students think critically about Culture. Finally, as one of those participating in these presentations, it has given me the opportunity to speak publicly about anthropology. A second example of one of UrbAn’s current projects the Neighborhood Eco-cultural Squares to Integrate Neighborhood Greening (NESTING) project, strives to apply the principles of the field of anthropology to improve urban life by redeveloping vacant lots into neighborhood squares. A recent focus of the International Making Cities Livable Conference was how to involve neighborhood residents in the creation of neighborhood squares. Research by anthropologists such as Setha Low suggests the community-building that occurs in these squares has an impact on efforts to revitalize neighborhood infrastructures by improving economic opportunities, combating drug use and sales, providing activities for youth and decreasing gang activities. Low’s ethnographic study of neighborhood squares has shown that public spaces that are valued as places where people can gather and feel safe help maintain real estate values, revitalize neighborhoods and attract businesses to an area. (180) Student interns from a variety of majors and a diverse mix of community groups interact in the NESTING project. A film major and anthropology interns from two schools were involved in surveying 200 neighborhood residents, door-to-door, about the design of the square and its use. Some of the interns attended community meetings or spoke with members of the following kinds of groups: neighborhood associations, garden coalitions, local business associations, homeowner associations, local church groups and neighborhood schools. At the same time, our executive director and a volunteer communicated with city official as the project proceeded. The landscape design for the square was a semester project for a class in the Landscape Architect program at a school in southern Wisconsin. Our use of the democratic process in assembling data from the neighborhood residents is the facet of the project that most interested the National Park Service. The Park Service has been renovating vacant lots in cities, and turning them into public squares for years. Often times, however those squares sit unused by area residents and have often not had the desired revitalization effect on the neighborhood. It was our thought that if people had a voice in how the square was designed and what activities took place there, they would be more likely to use the space and participate in activities that took place there. In her presentation on public interest anthropology to the 97th annual meeting of the American Anthropology Association Peggy Sanday advises, oft times in a democratic, multicultural society "different groups contest their share in common resources or engage in activities seeking systemic social change in the delivery of rights and resources." (2) When this happens, anthropologists have the opportunity to observe "how conflicting interests are played out in a society" (2) as well as gain an appreciation of "the contemporary power dynamics in the political economy." (2) This opportunity was not something we expected when we began the project. The first conflicting interests we encountered were between the landscape architects and the goals UrbAn had set for the use of the democratic process in the design of the square. Our executive director had to spend considerable time discussing the concept of resident input in the design process to the landscape professor who wanted his students to have complete artistic license in the design. She was finally successfully partly because she spoke with the landscape students themselves. A second unexpected set of conflicting interests was revealed well into the project, after numerous meetings with most of the groups listed above. During our first day of surveying neighborhood residents, one of the interns was confronted by a resident about the survey. This resident claimed the survey was a ruse and that project decisions had been made already without the data we were collecting. The actual reasons for conflict turn out not to be those which were initially stated, however. Later that week our executive director was asked by the alderperson representing the neighborhood to attend a special meeting. Here she was confronted by a coalition of homeowners, including the resident who had confronted the intern. These residents approved of our approach of interviewing residents, but only when it pertained to homeowners. A very vocal minority from this group wished to suppress the voices of renters and the poor in the decision-making process about the use of the square. The conflict has caused the alderperson to renege on the city’s promise of the land for the square. What is interesting is the same set of conflicting interests had arisen previously when the project was discussed in another nearby neighborhood. Here again, a group committed to gentrification of that neighborhood also wished to block the input of low-income renters in the area. Despite the loss of the location for the square, interns and board members are committed to the project. We have, after all, 200 surveys showing a desire for a square where residents can participate in activities led by their neighbors, and where local craftspeople and cottage industries can sell their wares. These students are committed to the public interest in the square. Presently, UrbAn is looking for another suitable location, within the neighborhood, with no strings attached. At the same time, the organization is looking for a venue in which to address the class conflict issue, which was revealed during the project and exists in more than one of Milwaukee’s neighborhoods. The projects outlined above are just two examples of the opportunities the arena of public anthropology provide students from various disciplines to serve the community using anthropological theory and methodology while working on actual community projects, which the students and the community find valuable. These projects and others like them increase the visibility of anthropology while making it more accessible to the public. Further collaborative efforts such as these would benefit the community, and the field of anthropology while giving the student the opportunity to fulfill their dreams about the field of anthropology and the world they live in.
Mary Roffers received her BA in Anthropology and a minor in Communications from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM). Currently she is a second year Masters student at UWM. Her research interests are inter-cultural communications, cultural identity, Ojibwe language and culture and the theory, practice, and technology involved in "virtual museum" exhibits. She is presently working on a visual and Internet literacy project at Riverside University High School in Milwaukee.
References Low, Setha. 2000. On the Plaza: the Politics of Public Space and Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press. Sanday, Peggy. 1998 Opening Statement: Defining Public Interest Anthropology. Delivered at the 97th Annual meeting of American Anthropology Association. Retrieved from the World Wide Web November 25, 2001. Urban Anthropology, Inc. 2000 Annual Newsletter. Urban Anthropology, Inc. 2000 Grant Proposal for the Neighborhood Eco-cultural Squares to Integrate Neighborhood Greening (NESTING) project. Urban Anthropology, Inc. 2001) Annual Newsletter.
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