Community Research and Organizing       

Marie Kennedy                             Course Description                     Spring 2013

 

Time:                          Mondays, 2:00-4:50pm

Place                           PAB 4371

Course Number         URBN PL 283 - LEC 1

Professor:                  Marie Kennedy

Office:                         PAB 5-5284

Telephone:                 617-997-6478 (cell); 310-439-1655 (h)

email:                          mariekennedy@ucla.edu

Office hours:              Mondays 10-12; and by appointment

 

Course Description

In this course we will examine the theory and practice of organizing, analyze the role of community organizing as an empowerment strategy in disadvantaged and marginalized communities, and think about the relationship of community and worker organizing to broader movements for social change.  We will analyze different research methods and strategies in terms of best supporting organizing and movement building.  Focus will be on action research and community-based participatory research. Participants will gain an understanding of the theories, principles and strategies of community-based research, an appreciation of the advantages and limitations of various approaches, and the of the skills necessary for participating effectively in community-based projects.  Students will analyze in depth one organizing model and participate in an ongoing research project that supports a local community or worker organization, exploring the links between the research and the organizing campaign to which it is connected.  Throughout, particular attention will be paid to the race, gender and class dimensions of community-based research and issues of power and decolonizing research. 

 

What is research?  Research is digging facts.  Digging facts is as hard a job as mining coal.  It means blowing them out form underground, cutting them, picking them, shoveling them, loading them, pushing them to the surface, weighing them, and then turning them on to the public for fuel—for light and heat.  Facts make a fire which cannot be put out.  To get coal requires miners.  To get facts requires miners, too: fact miners.

--John Brophy, Pennsylvania miner, an advocate of public ownership of resources, 1921.

 

Community organizing is the process of building power through involving a constituency in identifying problems they share and the solutions to those problems that they desire; identifying the people and structures that can make those solutions possible; enlisting those targets in the effort through negotiation and using confrontation and pressure when needed; and building an institution that is democratically controlled by that constituency that can develop the capacity to take on further problems and that embodies the will and the power of that constituency.

--Dave Beckwith, with Cristina Lopez, Center for Community Change

 

 

Course Structure

 

This course will meet for approximately 3 hours once a week.  The course’s primary format will reflect participatory research’s philosophical commitment to co-teaching and co-learning as opposed to more didactic pedagogical approaches, and critical group discussion will be emphasized.  Learning will be through discussion of readings, guest speakers, and critical analysis of experiences and organizing and community-based research cases throughout the United States, and through your own social justice, community organizing, and participatory case study experiences.  Participants will be expected to read the articles before class and come prepared to discuss how the theory relates to organizing and/or community-based research practice and to participants’ own experiences.

 

 

Required Readings

 

Readings are available via CCLE. You will have approximately 70-90 pages of required reading each week and it is critical that you do the readings.  Supplemental readings are not required, but may add to your understanding. In addition, you will each read a book of your choice on organizing (see paper assignment below). 

 

 

Course Policies

 

Attendance:

Attendance is mandatory at all class sessions.  If you are sick or have an unavoidable conflict, please notify me in advance by email.  Any unexcused absences may be counted against your participation grade.

 

Grading:

Your final grade will be based on three required elements: 1) class participation, 2) organizing analysis paper and 3) research participation and analysis paper and oral presentation.

 

The elements will be weighted as follows:

 

Class participation, discussion                                 30%

Discussion questions                                                non-graded, but must do to pass

Organizing paper                                                      35%

Research participation, analysis & presentation   35%

 

 


Course Requirements

 

Participation:

Full participation by all students is critical to developing a student-centered learning environment.  Participation means regular attendance, knowledge of the reading assignments, and participation in class exercises and discussions. 

 

Discussion Questions

Each week, pose two discussion questions based on the readings.  Discussion questions must be posted on CCLE at least by midnight on Saturdays. No discussion questions are due on the first day of class.  These discussion questions will not be graded, but are required in order to pass the course.  You may miss one set of questions during the quarter and still pass.

 

Analyzing and Evaluating Organizing Approaches and the Role of Research

Content outline of paper due April 29th

Final paper due May 20th

 

Effective organizers ground their work in theories based on knowledge of issues, groups, and practices of those that came before them.  Successful organizing campaigns involve thought, planning and reflection.  Organizing efforts often fail because they are reactive, because they lack thoughtful strategies, and/or because they employ the wrong tactics.  Most labor and community organizers develop their skills, often with inadequate preparation, in the heat of particular campaigns. By  carefully analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of particular organizing approaches and campaigns, we can improve our practice as planners/researchers supporting community and worker organizing.

 

1.   Each student will read and analyze one book about organizing, either from a list provided by the professor (see list at end of assignment) or selected by the student and approved by the professor.  In analyzing the particular approach to organizing expressed in the book, identify [obviously, if something on the following list isn’t in the book, you can’t write about it, but please note it’s absence]:

 

•    The political and historical context in which this approach was developed

•    The values and political views of those who developed the approach

•    The short-range and long-range goals of the approach

•    Examples of strategies associated with the approach

•    Tactics associated with the approach

•    What the author, other analysts, participants and the organizers themselves reported on the strengths and weaknesses of the approach and related strategies.

 

2.   Analyze at least one specific organizing campaign described in the book, including:

•    The context in which the organizing campaign took place and how the issues were created and framed by the organizers or by others

•    The target the organizers chose and why

•    The goals the organizers chose for the campaign and why

•    The strategy the organizers chose and why

•    The choice of strategy, and how it was affected by the values of the organizers and the approach they favored

•    What resources the organizers utilized and how well they exploited those resources, including sources of information and funding as well as research and media aid

•    What key groups or constituencies had a stake in the outcome

•    How well the organizers targeted their opposition and how well they mobilized their constituents and potential allies

•    What internal problems (including issues of race, class and gender) and external obstacles (e.g., opposition by media and law enforcement) the organizers faced and how they attempted to overcome those obstacles

•    What tactics the organizers adopted, how well they worked, and what tactics organizers ignored

•    How well the organizers used the media, and developed a strategy and tactics for doing so

•    How well the organizers related to elected leaders and to the members and/or followers they were trying to organize; and how the campaign effort or organization functioned internally in terms of democracy, participation, education and empowerment.

 

3.   Based on the descriptive analysis above, evaluate the organizing approach:

•    How well the organizing model served the activists in providing goals, strategies and tactics

•    How the organizers defined success or failure

•    Why the strategies adopted succeeded or why they failed

•    What role the organizers themselves played and how they were viewed by the people they tried to organize

 

Your description and analysis will be presented in a professionally written paper, double-spaced (no longer than 20 pages) . You will be primarily referencing the one book that you are reading, but sometimes the author of that book will reference other sources and sometimes you may wish to reference other sources (e.g., course readings).  As is usual, you must identify all sources of data, information, and ideas.  When quoting or paraphrasing someone else’s work, cite the source.  Use the author-date form of citation.  For example:

 

In our view, community development “is more than just bricks and mortar, specific job creation, or legislative reform.  It is helping people to increase their control over decisions that affect their lives, developing their capacity to intervene in their own environments, and bring justice to their lives.” (Kennedy & Mead, 1996, 101).

 

Then at the end of the paper, have a complete list of references.  For example:

 

Kennedy, Marie and Molly Mead.  1996.  Serving in One’s Own Community:  Taking a Second Look at Our Assumptions about Community Service Education.  Metropolitan Universities.  Summer.  99-111.

 

NOTE: Using someone else’s information or ideas without citing the source is misleading, prevents a reader from following up on interesting ideas, and defeats the educational purpose of the assignments (which is to build on other people’s work to come up with your own ideas and conclusions). Also, the university forbids it, and stipulates serious penalties if a student is caught at it.  Please don’t do it. Guidelines for academic honesty are posted at http://www.deanofstudents.ucla.edu/StudentGuide.pdf, with a more complete code of conduct at http://www.deanofstudents.ucla.edu/studentconductcode.pdf.  In brief, to adhere to academic honesty, you should:

 

•    Again, provide citations for information, except for information that is general knowledge or that you learned from direct observation.

•    When you use a direct quotation, “put it in quotation marks.”  (For direct quotes, give the page number.)  It is not OK to use a close paraphrase as an alternative to a direct quotation—if it’s close, we expect you to just use the direct quote.

 

Choose from this list of books or obtain the professor’s approval of an organizing book of your choice:

 

•    Alinsky, Saul D. (1969). Reveille for Radicals. New York: Vintage Books.

•    Atlas, John. (2010). Seeds of Change: The Story of ACORN. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

•    Ganz, Marshall. (2009). Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement. New York: Oxford University Press.

•    Hinsdale, Mary Ann, Helen M. Lewis and S. Maxine Waller. (1995). It Comes from the People: Community Development and Local Theology. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

•    Medoff, Peter and Holly Sklar. (1994). Streets of Hope: The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood. Boston, MA: South End Press.

•    Miller, Mike. (2009). A Community Organizer’s Tale: People and Power in San Francisco. Berkeley: Heyday Books.

•    Ransby, Barbara. ((2003). Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

•    Stout, Linda. (1996). Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing. Boston: Beacon Press.

•    Warren, Mark R. (2001). Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

 

Research Participation and Analysis

Short research updates are due every two weeks

Paper due June 10th; oral presentation on June 10th

Los Angeles is a hotbed of community and worker organizing.  Each student will participate in an ongoing research project that is connected to a community and/or worker organizing campaign.  Students who are already involved in providing research assistance to an organizing campaign or community or worker organization may utilize that work in this assignment.  Other students will be provided with a range of options for doing research in support of an organizing campaign (see below for a list of organizations that have requested students—descriptions of each project are posted on the CCLE).   Students may work individually or in a team with other students in the class.  Teams will be a maximum of 3 students.  Each student should plan on providing at least 30 hours of work on research over the course of the quarter to the project in addition to the time taken to interview researchers and organizers in order to analyze the overall research design and the connection of the research to an organizing campaign. Papers will address the following:

 

•    What is the overall research design?

•    Who was involved in posing the research question(s)?

•    What research methods are being employed?

•    How and by whom were the research methods determined?

•    Why were these research methods chosen?

•    Who (besides you) is conducting the research?

•    How does the research fit into an organizing campaign?  Is the research itself an organizing tool?

•    Who will determine how the results of the research are used?      

•    Will the results of this research help determine the target of an organizing campaign?  Of particular strategies and tactics? 

•    Is there a media strategy connected to the research?

•    In your opinion(s), how effective is the overall research design?  If you were working with this group from the beginning, would you have suggested a different approach?  What would be your appropriate role as a planner?

 

In a short professionally written paper (no longer than 10 pages, double spaced) and in a 5 minute presentation, share your analysis of the research design, the connection of the research to organizing and reflections on what your role as a planner might be in a similar situation. 

 

Organizations for research placement:

•    Bus Riders Union

•    California Calls

•    CLEAN Carwash Campaign

•    East Los Angeles Community Corporation

•    Food Chain Workers Alliance

•    International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11

•    LAANE (Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy)

•    Unión de Vecinos

 


 

Community Research and Organizing       

Marie Kennedy                              Class Schedule                               Spring 2013

 

 

Class 1: April 1

Introduction—Interweaving Research & Organizing for Community Development

 

Required reading:

•    Lukehart, John. (1997). Collaborative, Policy-Related Research in the Area of Fair Housing and Community Development. In Nyden, Philip, Anne Figert, Mark Shibley and Darryl Burrows. Building Community: Social Science in Action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. 47-51.

•    Gaventa, John and Bill Horton. (Jan.1982) Digging the Facts. Southern Exposure.

•    Sen, Rinku. (2003). Chapter 6: Take Back the Facts.  Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 116-134.

 

Supplemental reading:

•    Hudson, Malo A. (2013). Where Is the “Public” in Public Universities?  Environmental Justice. 6:1. 27-31. 

•    Kennedy, Marie and Molly Mead. (1996) Serving in One’s Own Community:  Taking a Second Look at Our Assumptions about Community Service Education.  Metropolitan Universities.  7.1. 99-111.

 

Assignments:

•    2  discussion questions based on the readings for Class 2 to be posted on CCLE by Saturday, April 6

•    Choose an organizing book to read for the organizing paper (see full assignment above)

•    If your planned research project is not one of those arranged by the instructor, provide a description (in the same format) of your planned research project, identifying the group with which you will work and roughly the work that you will do.   If it is one of the pre-arranged projects, contact the community supervisor and meet or arrange a meeting with him or her so that you can get started.

 

 


Class 2: April 8

What is organizing?  Models of organizing, part 1

 

Required reading:

•    Sen, Rinku. (2003). Introduction: Community Organizing—Yesterday and Today.  Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. xliii-lxv.

•    Obama, Barack. (Aug.-Sept. 1988). Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City. Illinois Issues. Downloaded from the web on 1/22/11.

•    Staples, Lee. (2004). Excerpt from “Power to the People” Basic Organizing Philosophy and Goals. Roots to Power: A Manual for Grassroots Organizing. London: Praeger. 1-14.

•    Stall, Susan and Randy Stoecker. (1997). Community Organizing or Organizing Community? Gender and the Crafts of Empowerment. A COMM-ORG Working Paper. http://comm-org.wisc.edu/papers96/gender2.html

•    Kader, Adam. (Jan. 19, 2011). Storytelling as Organizing: How to Rescue the Left from its Crisis of Imagination. In These Times.

•    Narro, Victor. (2010). In Milkman, Ruth, Joshua Bloom and Victor Narro, eds. Afterword. Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy Ithaca: Cornell University. 233-244.

 

Skim the following reading related to the guest speaker:

•    Milkman, Ruth, Ana Luz González and Victor Narro. (2010). Wage Theft and Workplace Violations in Los Angeles. Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, UCLA.

•    Carwash Workers Organizing Committee of the United Steelworkers. (March 27, 2008). Cleaning Up the Carwash Industry: Empowering Workers and Protecting Communities.

•    National Workers’ Rights Board. (May 2010). Raising Standards for Carwash Workers.

 

Supplementary Reading:

•    Waheed, Saba, Miho Kim and Walter Davis. (June 2010).  Sustaining Organizing: A Survey of Organizations During the Economic Downturn. Data Center and the National Organizers Alliance.

•    Hess, Douglas R. (June 1999). Community Organizing, Building and Developing: Their Relationship to Comprehensive Community Initiatives. Unpublished paper. 47 pages.

 

Guest speaker:  Victor Narro, Project Director, UCLA Labor Center

 

Assignments:

•    2  discussion questions based on the readings for Class 2 to be posted on CCLE by Saturday, April 13.

•    Either as a team or individually, compose a short research plan which lays out how you plan to distribute your research workload through the quarter. For each week list the hours you have budgeted to spend, and any tasks or documents you will produce (that you know of thus far).

 

 


Class 3: April 15

Models of organizing, part 2

 

Required reading:

•    Sen, Rinku. (2003). Chapter One: New Realities, Integrated Strategies.  Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 1-23.

•    Orr, Marion, ed. (2007) Community Organizing and the Changing Ecology of Civic Engagement. Transforming the City: Community Organizing and the Challenge of Political Change. 1-27.

•    Smock, Kristina. (2004). Chapter 2, Models of Community Organizing: An Overview & excerpt of Chapter 9, Lessons Learned. Democracy in Action: Community Organizing and Urban Change. New York: Columbia University Press. 10-33 & 248-255.

•    Kennedy, Marie. (winter 2006). Book Review: Democracy in Action: Community Organizing and Urban Change. Review of Radical Political Economics.151-154.

•    Rubin, Herbert J. and Irene S. Rubin. (2008). Organizational Models for Social Change. Community Organizing and Development, 4th ed. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. List on inside front cover.

•    Amador, Carlos. (2011).  This Is Our Country Too:  Undocumented Immigrant Youth Organizing and the Battle for the DREAM Act.  Critical Planning. 108-114.

•    Caitlin C. Patler. (2010). Alliance-Building and organizing for Immigrant Rights: The Case of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. In Milkman, Ruth, Joshua Bloom and Victor Narro, eds. Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 71-88.

 

Assignments:

•    2  discussion questions based on the readings for the class 4 to be posted on CCLE by Saturday, April 20.

 

Guest speaker:     Carlos Amador, Project Manager, Dream Resource Center, UCLA Labor Center

 

 

Class 4: April 22

Models of organizing, part 3

Transformative populism vs. redistributive populism

 

Required reading:

•    Kennedy, Marie, Chris Tilly with Mauricio Gaston. (1990) Transformative Populism and the Development of a Community of Color.  In Joseph Kling and Prudence Posner, eds., Dilemmas of Activism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 302-324.

•    Santow, Mark. (2007) Running in Place: Saul Alinsky, Race and Community. In Orr, Marion, ed. Transforming the City: Community Organizing and the Challenge of Political Change. 28-55.

•    Delgado, Gary. (1994) Beyond the Politics of Place. Oakland: Applied Research Center. 85 pages.

•    Miller, Michael. (1996) “Beyond the Politics of Place”: A Critical Review. San Francisco: Organize Training Center. Downloaded from http://comm-org.wisc.edu/papers96/miller.html on 1/22/11.

 

Supplemental Reading:

•    Miller,Mike. (Winter 2011). The Plague of the Nonprofits. Shelterforce. 4 pages.

•    Ransby, Barbara. (April 4, 2011).  Quilting a Movement: Real movements for social change need many grassroots leaders—not one charismatic politician. 4 pages.

•    Achtenberg, Emily, Marie Kennedy and Michael Stone. (1973). Community Housing Development Corporations: The Empty Promise. Urban Planning Aid, Inc. 43 pages.

 

Assignments:

•    2  discussion questions based on the readings for the next class to be posted on CCLE by Saturday, April 27.

•    Content outline of your paper on an organizing book, hand in hard copy next class.

•    Research update: What have you accomplished in the last 2 weeks? (one or two paragraphs or bullet points). What do you plan to accomplish in the next 2 weeks? (one or two paragraphs or bullet points)

 

 

Class 5: April 29

Action Research-->Participatory Action Research

 

Required reading:

•    Nina Wallerstein and Bonnie Duran. (2003). The Conceptual, Historical and Practice Roots of Community Based Participatory Research and Related Participatory Traditions. In Meredith Minkler and Nina Wallerstein, eds., Community-Based Participatory Research for Health. Jossey-Bass. 27-52.

•    Sen, Rinku. (2003). Chapter 6: Take Back the Facts.  Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 116-134.

•    Bacon, Christopher, Saneta deVuono-Powell, Mary Louise Frampton, Tony LoPresti, and Camille Pannu. (2013).  Introduction to Empowered Partnerships: Community-Based Participatory Action Research for Environmental Justice. Environmental Justice. 6:1. 1-8.

•    Chávez, Vivian, Bonnie Duran, et.al. (2003). The Dance of Race and Privilege in Community Based Participatory Research. In Meredith Minkler and Nina Wallerstein, eds., Community-Based Participatory Research for Health. Jossey-Bass. 81-97.

 

A case study: The Roofless Women’s Action Research Mobilization

Skim the following:

•    Kennedy, Marie with the Roofless Women’s Action Research Mobilization researchers. (1996). A hole in my soul: Experiences of homeless women.  In Diane Dujon and Ann Withorn, eds. For Crying Out Loud: Women’s Poverty in the United States, 2nd edition.  Boston: South End Press. 41-55.

•    Replogle, Elaine M. (Fall 1995). Promising Practices: The Roofless Women’s Action Research Mobilization (RWARM). The Evaluation Exchange. Harvard Family Research Project.

•    Kennedy, Marie and Betsy Reed. (Jan/Feb 1996). Dollars & Sense. 27-29, 39.

•    Kennedy, Marie. (1998). Lifting Women’s Voices: The Roofless Women’s Action Research Mobilization and Participatory Action Research. Planners Network. July/August 1998. 7-9.

 

Methods:

•    O’Brien, Rory. (1998). An Overview of the Methodological Approach of Action Research. http://www.web.net/~robrien/papers/arfinal.html

•    Bradbury, Hilary. (2003). Issues and Choice Points for Improving the Quality of Action Research. In Meredith Minkler and Nina Wallerstein, eds., Community-Based Participatory Research for Health. Jossey-Bass. 201-220.

•    Brown, Leland and William A. Vega. (2003). A Protocol for Community Based Research. In Meredith Minkler and Nina Wallerstein, eds., Community-Based Participatory Research for Health. Jossey-Bass. 407-409.

 

Supplemental Reading:

•    Park, Peter. (1993). What Is Participatory Research? A Theoretical and Methodological Perspective. In Park, Peter, Mary Brydon-Miller, Budd Hall and Ted Jackson. Voices of Change: Participatory Research in the United States and Canada. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. 1-19.

•    Connell, Dan. (Aug. 1997). Participatory development: An approach sensitive to class and gender. Development in Practice. 7:3.

•    Eyben, Rosalind, Colette Harris and Jethro Petitit (Nov 2006). Introduction: Exploring Power for Change. IDS Bulletin. 37:6. 1-10.

•    Balazs, Carolina A. and Rachel Morello Frosch. (2013).  the Three Rs: How Community-Based Participatory Research Strengthens the Rigor, Relevance, and Reach of Science. Environmental Justice. 6:1. 9-16.

 

Assignments:

•    2  discussion questions based on the readings for the next class to be posted on CCLE by Saturday, May 4

 

 

Class 6: May 6

Collaborative Project-Based Community Research

 

Required reading:

•    Stoecker, Randy. (2005). Chapter 2: The Goose Approach to Research. Research Methods for Community Change. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. 27-58.

•    Stoecker, Randy. (2003). Are Academics Irrelevant?: Approaches and Roles for Scholars in Community Based Participatory Research. In Meredith Minkler and Nina Wallerstein, eds., Community-Based Participatory Research for Health. Jossey-Bass. 98-112.

•    Nyden, Philip, Anne Figert, Mark Shibley and Darryl Burrows. (1997). University-Community Collaborative Research: Adding Chairs at the Research Table. Building Community: Social Science in Action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. 3-13.

•    Kennedy, Marie, Lorna Rivera and Chris Tilly. (Summer 2003). Looking at Participatory Planning in Cuba…Through an Art Deco Window. Progressive Planning. #156. 4-8.

•    Kennedy, Marie, Chris Tilly and Mercedes Arce. (2010) Participatory planning in a rural Mexican village: Lessons for community development and planning education.  Unpublished paper.

 

Methods:

•    Oxfam. Quick Guide to Power Analysis.

•    Skim for a sense of the wide variety of methods used in 38 different cases: The Institute for Community Research. (2007). Case Studies in Community-Based Collaborative Research.

•    Center for Community Planning, UMass Boston. Visioning Exercise for goal setting.

•    Fontana, Andrea and James H. Frey. (2005). The Interview: From Neutral Stance to Political Involvement. In Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 695-727.

•    Kamberelis, George and Greg Dimitriadis. (2005). Focus Groups: Strategic Articulations of Pedagogy, Politics, and Inquiry. In Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 887-907.

 

Supplemental Reading:

•    Kennedy, Marie and Michael Stone. (1997). Bringing the Community Into the University. In Nyden, Philip, Anne Figert, Mark Shibley and Darryl Burrows, eds., Building Community: Social Science in Action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. 120-128.

 

Exercise: visioning for goal setting

 

Assignments:

•    2  discussion questions based on the readings for the next class to be posted on CCLE by Saturday, May 11.

•    Research update: What have you accomplished in the last 2 weeks? (one or two paragraphs or bullet points)  What do you plan to accomplish in the next 2 weeks? (one or two paragraphs or bullet points)

 

 

Class 7: May 13

Research and Environmental Justice Organizing

 

Required reading:

•    Bullard, Robert D. (1997). Dismantling Environmental Racism in the Policy Arena: The Role of Collaborative Social Research. In Nyden, Philip, Anne Figert, Mark Shibley and Darryl Burrows. Building Community: Social Science in Action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. 67-73.

•    Bullard, Robert D. (2000). Environmental Justice: Grassroots Activism and Its Impact on Public Policy Decision Making. Journal of Social Issues. 56:3. 555-578.

•    Garcia, Analilia, Nina Wallerstein, Andrea Hicko, Jesse N. Marquez, et. al.  (2013). THE (Trade, Health, Environment) Impact Project: A Community-Based Participatory Research Environmental Justice Case Study. Environmental Justice. 6:1. 17-25.

•    The Building a Regional Voice for Environmental Justice Collaborative. (2004). Building a Regional Voice for Environmental Justice. 14 pages.

•    Los Angeles Collaborative for Environmental Health and Justice: Hidden Hazards: A Call to Action for Healthy, Livable Communities.

Methods:

•    Brown, Marianne P. (2003). Risk Mapping as a Tool for Community Based Participatory Research and Organizing. In Meredith Minkler and Nina Wallerstein, eds., Community-Based Participatory Research for Health. Jossey-Bass. 446-450.

•    Wang, Caroline C. (2003). Using Photovoice as a Participatory Assessment and Issue Selection Tool: A Case Study with the Homeless in Ann Arbor. In Meredith Minkler and Nina Wallerstein, eds., Community-Based Participatory Research for Health. Jossey-Bass. 179-200.

 

Supplementary Reading:

•    Collin, Robin Morris and Robert Collin. (2005). Environmental Reparations. In Bullard, Robert D., ed., Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 209-221

•    Wander, Madeline. (2012). From Environmental Racism to Environmental Justice: Applying Critical Race Theory to the Practice of Toxic Waste Siting in California’s Immigrant Latino Farmworker Communities.  Student paper for Critical Race Studies course.

 

Guest speaker:  Lauren Ahkiam, Research & Policy Analyst, LAANE

 

Assignments:

•    2 discussion questions based on the readings for the next class to be posted on CCLE by Saturday, May 18.

 

 

Class 8: May 20

Research and Place-Based Organizing

 

Required reading:

•    Gaston, Mauricio and Marie Kennedy. (Sept.1987) Capital Investment or Community Development?  The Struggle for Land Control by Boston's Black and Latino Community.  Antipode:  A Radical Journal of Geography.  19:2. 178-209.

•    Gonzalez, Paulina. (2012) South “Central” Los Angeles: Residents Fight to Save Their Beloved Community in the Face of USC Expansion Plans. Progressive Planning. 14-17.

•    Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice and Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger & Homelessness. (Aug. 2002). Share the Wealth: A Policy Strategy for Fair Redevelopment in L.A.’s City Center.

•    Haas, Gilda with Andrea Gibbons. (Sept. 2002). Redefining Redevelopment: Participatory Research for Equity in the Los Angeles Figueroa Corridor. Department of Urban Planning, School of Public Affairs, University of California Los Angeles.

 

Supplemental Reading:

•    Berzofsky, Scott, Christopher Gladora, David Sloan and Nicholas Wisniewski. (2007). Listening, Collaboration, Solidarity. Critical Planning. 111-119.

 

Guest Speaker:   Isidro Cerda, TOD Coordinator, SAJE (Strategic Actions for a Just Economy)

 

Assignments:

•    2  discussion questions based on the readings for the next class to be posted on CCLE by Saturday, June 1.

•    Final paper on book about organizing; bring hard copy to class and submit on CCLE.

•    Research update:
What have you accomplished in the last 2 weeks? (one or two paragraphs or bullet points)  What do you plan to accomplish in the next week? (one or two paragraphs or bullet points)

 

May 27: Memorial Day Holiday

 

Class 9: June 3

Research and Organizing of Workers

 

Required reading:

•    Gottleib, Robert. (1997). Janitors and Dry Cleaners: Constructing a Collaborative Model for Environmental Research. In Nyden, Philip, Anne Figert, Mark Shibley and Darryl Burrows. Building Community: Social Science in Action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. 79-84.

•    Leavitt, Jacqueline and Gary Blasi. (2010). The Los Angeles Taxi Workers Alliance. In Milkman, Ruth, Joshua Bloom and Victor Narro, eds. Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 109-124.

•    LAANE. (Dec. 2009). Transforming the Gateway to L.A.: The Economic Benefits of a Sustainable Tourism Model.

•    Stuart, Forrest. (2010). From the Shop to the Streets: Unite HERE Organizing in Los Angeles Hotels. In Milkman, Ruth, Joshua Bloom and Victor Narro, eds. Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 191-210.

 

Methods:

•    Lee, Pam Tau, Niklas Krause and Charles Goetchius. (2003). Participatory Action Research with Hotel Room Cleaners: From Collaborative Study to the Bargaining Table. In Meredith Minkler and Nina Wallerstein, eds., Community-Based Participatory Research for Health. Jossey-Bass. 390-404.

 

Guest Speaker:      Citlalli Chavez, Internal Organizer at SEIU-USWW

 

Assignments:

•    Paper on research project, bring hard copy to class and submit on CCLE.

•    Prepare oral presentation and practice it in order to keep within time limit

 

 

Class 10: June 10

Oral presentations of research projects