CSSD launches five new projects for the 2019-20 academic year. The projects will address gender, race, sexuality, and other forms of inequality to foster ethical and progressive social change.
Migrant Personhood and Rights: Crises of Recognition: This working group will explore the long-standing global crisis of recognition at the heart of anti-immigrant ideas and policies. It will focus on the discourses, practices, and institutions that actively deny immigrants recognition, as well as those discourses, practices, and institutions that recognize, support, and affirm migrants and their rights.
Project Directors: Thea Abu El-Haj, JC Salyer
Environmental Justice, Belief Systems and Aesthetic Experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean: In response to the increasing power of the evangelical right in Latin America and the Caribbean, this project traces renewed interest in traditional and indigenous belief systems that have fueled struggles for environmental justice. These struggles rely on expressive and aesthetic forms such as ritual, song, and performance.
Project Directors: Vicky Murillo, Ana Ochoa
Data Algorithms and Social Justice: The question of “which differences make a difference” is being radically redefined by algorithmic logics and machine learning technologies. This project plans to take a leading role in reshaping thought around social difference in the digital age, informing the powerful work of computer scientists, engineers, and statisticians by engaging participation of historians, sociologists, philosophers, critical theorists, and others trained in exploring questions of social difference and justice. Project Directors: Matthew Jones, Dennis Tenen and Chris Wiggins
Women’s Heart Disease Awareness: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality for women in the United States, accounting for more deaths than breast cancer, cervical cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease combined, yet awareness of risk factors for CVD in women is extremely low and underprioritized. This group looks at big questions about what motivates women to make tangible changes to their health behaviors, and how to get people in health care policy, research funding, and the media more invested in women’s health issues.
Project Directors: Natalie Bello, Sonia Tolani
Transnational Black Feminisms: The Transnational Black Feminisms working group aims to think about how transnational Black feminisms can move us beyond survivability and demands for recognition, and instead generate alternative frames and understandings around belonging, community, justice, and equity
Project Directors: Celia E. Naylor, Premilla Nadasen