The Institute for Society, Culture and Environment (ISCE) is pleased to announce the recipients of its’ summer research stimulus grant program. The purpose of this program is to provide faculty support for developing interdisciplinary research proposals in the social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Local Knowledge, Building Science, and Technical Assessments in Post-Katrina
New Orleans’ Historic Districts
This project will examine the relationship between local knowledge and non-local
(outside/expert) knowledge in the assessment, rebuilding and repair of historic
damaged properties in New Orleans. It will focus on several predominantly
minority and mixed neighborhoods in the older (19th century) parts of the
city. Specifically, the research will look at interactions between
local groups and individuals, NGOs and businesses that target the repair
and rebuilding of historic properties, and the local, state and national
government arena to further understanding of how local knowledge can be effectively
combined with cosmopolitan knowledge to enable rebuilding in the wake of
a disaster that is culturally and technologically appropriate and communicatively
open and helpful to all participants.
Aural Matrix Haptic Display Interface: A Two-Dimensional Aural Speaker
Array as a Three-Dimensional Multimodal Interactive Environment for Imaging
and Navigation
Aural Matrix Haptic Display Interface (AMHDI) is an aural counterpart to
the traditional visual display technology, such as TV and LCD. It uses human
aural perception mechanism and its vastly underemployed discrete spatial
potential in order to complement, off-load, or entirely replace human visual
perception function. AMHDI serves a foundation for the development of assistive
technologies for visually impaired as well as other perception-, navigation-,
and coordination based. It has a creative media potential to enhance both
consumer and immersive audio environments, as well as offer a new artistic
medium. The main objective of this project is to produce a small but fully
functional AMHDI prototype.
Parent-child Emotional Communication in Families who have Experienced
Mediation Related to Separation or Divorce
Mediation is increasingly promoted as a way of resolving family conflicts
related to separation or divorce that is both more efficient and less disruptive
for parents and children compared to litigation. One critical aspect
of the mediation process is the parents’ education about emotional
communication. Research on children’s social and emotional development
strongly suggests that children are aided by their parents’ acceptance
of negative emotions and discussion of the causes and consequences of emotions. However,
little of this research has been conducted with families who have experienced
separation or divorce. In collaboration with Better Agreements, Inc.
(BAI), our local conflict mediation center, we will examine parent-child
emotional communication in families with children whose parents have participated
in mediation related to separation or divorce.
Synergistic Approach to Applying Rhetoric, Creative Writing, and Music
for Teaching Science and Mathematics Concepts to Young Children
Science and Mathematics Inclusive Learning and Engagement (SMILE) is an
interdisciplinary project with the purpose of teaching concepts of science
and mathematics to young children in remote regions of Appalachia through
metaphors and similes embedded in children-oriented stories and songs. With
personnel from rhetoric, creative writing, linguistics, music, and industrial
systems and engineering, we are developing educational toys and instructional
materials to convey new concepts in familiar and easy to understand terms
of mining and engineering. These materials are produced in a participatory
approach with potential users serving as consultants and evaluators. The
purpose of this project is to develop complete and real examples of our kits,
including toys/artifacts, documentation for parents, and educational stories
and songs for children to be used as evidence of the project’s effectiveness
when applying for external funding.
TWIST: Theater Workshop in Science and Technology
Since 1984, the award winning Choices and Challenges (C&C) program
has developed an evidence-based model for public dialog among scientists,
humanists, policymakers, activists, and various publics about contentious
and significant developments in the relation between science, technology,
and social life. Building on past successes with performances associated
with the yearly Choices and Challenges Forum, this collaboration will institutionalize
a yearly cycle of development, performance, and evaluation of theater pieces
that: 1) engages various publics with significant or contentious developments
in science or technology, while 2) simultaneously serving as a research program
for understanding how science/theater projects can and do serve as resources
for developers and attendees, as well as explorations on the potential of
such projects for facilitating meaningful social transformation.
Identity Transformation as Constructed in Federal Mine Safety Coal Inspection
Discourse: How Miners Are Becoming Effective Agents of Change
The Mine Safety and Health Administration's National Mine Health and Safety
Academy (NMHS Academy) at Beaver, West Virginia, have launched a massive,
federally supported program to train over 500 new mine inspectors recruited
from miners working in mines throughout the country, but primarily
in the Appalachian coalfields, to enforce federal mining acts designed to
protect workers. The purpose of this project is to explore (1) how verbal
communications in mining inspections impact identity transformation as ex-miners
become empowered agents for enforcing mine safety within highly visible global
corporations; (2) how Academy teaching methods intersect with trainees’ prior
experiential knowledge; (3) how analyzing these discourse scenarios can assist
in developing educational models for transmitting the types of meta-knowledge
necessary for inspectors to make culturally informed and empowered decisions
shaping how globalization affects miners and their communities; (4) how results
can be extended to other educational settings; and (5) how findings can be
used to create a graduate-level course on social and individual transformation
to be cross-listed with Appalachian Studies and Engineering Education.
Between Making a Living and Making a Place: Flexible Labor, Social
Reproduction, and Latino Migration to the U.S. South
The last two years have brought dramatic change to the political and social
climate for immigrants in the “Nuevo” U.S. South. Initial
reports of southern hospitality extended to Latino immigrants have given
way to Minutemen in Tennessee, legislative initiatives in Georgia to revoke
birthright citizenship, and blurred federal and local border enforcement
actions across southern states. This research explores the premise that these
political and social tensions arise from new frictions for bothworking-class
immigrant and native-born residents: increasingly, their survival strategies
must navigate between, on the one hand, the hypermobility and temporal unpredictability
demanded of workers by flexible labor regimes and, on the other, the need
for place-making and temporal routinization required for social reproduction.
The research team will develop a multi-method investigation of these frictions
in three strategic sites: small, deindustrialized towns with diverse racial
demographics in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi.
