REU Site: Interdisciplinary Study of the Politics of Place

University Of Mississippi, University MS

Investigators

Abstract

This project is funded from the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE). This REU site project immerses students in a 10-week summer research experience where they learn and put into practice interdisciplinary methods to study the politics of place in the American South. The project actively recruits undergraduate students to conduct social scientific research with the University of Mississippi faculty. Activities for each participant include workshops with practical, hands-on instruction in research design, data collection, and data analysis; exposure to graduate educational opportunities and careers in science; participating in research projects with faculty mentors; writing a research paper; and presenting research findings for academic and non-academic audiences. This program: (1) provides students with the social scientific training and skills to conduct research that can make a positive impact in their own communities; (2) prepares students with the research skills necessary for a contemporary workforce; (3) provides focused and intensive mentoring of students to prepare them for careers in science. The intended impact of this program is to increase students’ social scientific literacy, equip them with the necessary knowledge and training to conduct social scientific research using a variety of methods, and increase the number of students pursuing graduate education and professional careers in the social sciences. Students will participate in faculty-directed research projects that focus on understanding how culture, place, and power intersect, with a special emphasis on how to conceptualize, operationalize, and study these concepts through an interdisciplinary, multi-methodological perspective. Examples of research projects include (1) studying how immigrants are incorporated into the sociopolitical and economic lives of communities that are not traditional migration destinations; (2) examining how the cultural, political, and religious context of Mississippi shapes the health and well-being of underrepresented Mississippians; (3) examining how food culture is used in the practice of placemaking and the evolution of regional identity; (4) exploring inequalities in the criminal justice system with respect to sentencing prescriptions for diverse defendants; and (5) examining how, in an era where status is increasingly scrutinized, groups are making sense of their place within America’s social structure. Students will be matched to research projects based on their substantive interests as well as the specific research skills they are most interested in developing. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.