Comparative Civic and Place Engagement in Three Latino Enclave Neighborhoods in Transition

Florida International University, Miami FL

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed research entails a three-city comparison of inner-ring Latino enclave neighborhoods: Pilsen (in Chicago), Garfield (in Phoenix), and East Little Havana (in Miami). In all three neighborhoods, established Latino groups face challenges both from new Hispanic immigrants and from relatively wealthy gentrifiers. This research will allow a systematic, comparative assessment of how individuals and groups interact with one another civically through organizations to shape their physical surroundings, and how these surroundings in turn foster or hinder belonging and exclusion. The PIs form a six-member interdisciplinary team of geographers, political scientists, and an anthropologist. In each neighborhood, teams of two local PIs will work in tandem with local graduates and undergraduates utilizing a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in four phases, including i) preliminary interviews, ii) large-scale survey, iii) in-depth interviews, and iv) focus groups. Data will be geocoded and georeferenced for spatial analysis in a Geographic Information System (GIS). The project duration is three years, from January 2005 December 2007. The expected outcomes of this research are fourfold: i) to foster interdisciplinary synergy resulting in new theoretical understandings based in part on the use of GIS, ii) to produce a stream of collaborative and individual scholarly publications, iii) to promote further multidisciplinary comparative studies that are policy relevant, and iv) to train underrepresented graduate and undergraduate students. This research is strongly supported by initial findings from pilot research, which suggests that inner-ring Latino enclave neighborhoods are sites of intense negotiation that telescope broader issues. The intellectual merit of this project arises from its contributions to understanding contemporary urban socio- spatial dynamics. These engage at multiple scales, and include negotiation of i) new Latino diasporas and the perceived Latinization of the United States, ii) the unfolding uneven geographies of development, and iii) changing bases of human solidarity and cleavage. Research on civic engagement has largely ignored the spatial arena through which civic engagement is conducted and indeed shaped. Likewise, research on the changing spatiality of cities has paid scant attention to the diversities within immigrant and ethnic groups and how these diversities shape the ways that immigrants and ethnics engage with the physical spaces of neighborhoods in materially consequential ways. The dramatic spatial transformations underway in inner-ring neighborhoods provide an ideal environment to query the assumptions that immigrants and inner-city minority populations are civically disengaged, that civic presence amongst Latinos is lacking, and that decisions over the shape, use, and control of neighborhood spaces is out of the grasp of residents. This research also clarifies debates over the existence and modalities of pan-ethnic solidarity, and addresses assumptions about Latinos as political actors. The broader impacts of this proposal are many. Global changes have set in motion new human diasporas, shaped new geographies of wealth and power, and reworked the social and spatial landscape of large cities. Understanding the human and spatial dimensions of these reorganizations, and how people engage with and actively shape them, constitutes the broader impact of this project. Inner-ring ethnic enclave neighborhoods distill broader contentions over immigration, urban redevelopment, political participation, and citizenship. How these issues are addressed is seen by some to shape the very identity of the U.S. Negative policy toward Latino immigration as well as anxiety over the perceived Latinization of the U.S. might be understood in part as a consequence of insufficiently nuanced knowledge. The research involves a broad range of social science themes (urban studies, ethnic studies, immigration studies) and social science disciplines, and integrates a spatial statistics component. Finally, the proposed research directly addresses the educational and training goals regarding Hispanic students of the home institutions of the PIs as well as the PIs respective disciplinary associations.