New center connects to community

T he College's Department of Anthropology has embarked on a program of new courses, extracurricular activities, and a resource center to support a special three-year theme of community--local, national, and global.

The Rochester Center for Ethnographic Studies, which is a key component of this initiative, now links the intellectual resources of the University to the needs and current realities of nearby communities. "We want to promote locally relevant research on issues of concern to those in Rochester and surrounding counties," said Mark Rogers, assistant professor of anthropology and director of the center.

As one of its first ventures, the center will host an undergraduate conference on Friday, April 16, where students will present original field research on the nature of community in urban settings. Student presentations will begin at 2 p.m. At 6 p.m. there will be a lecture by Rhoda Halperin--professor of anthropology, women's studies, and psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati--in the Gowen Room, Wilson Commons. All other sessions will be held in Room 209 of the Computer Studies Building and all are open to the public.

Last fall, the center established partnerships with the city's Department of Community Development and Bureau of Planning and the South East Area Coalition. Arrangements like these are expected to open opportunities for the study of urban planning initiatives, the nature of neighborhood organizing, reasons for migration to the suburbs and ex-urbs, and the prospects for retention of commercial enterprises in the city, among other topics. Such ethnographic studies require researchers to immerse themselves in the lives of those they study to understand them holistically and personally.

Based in Lattimore Hall on the River Campus, the center is tied to the anthropology department's themes for teaching and research: Communities in America, 1998-1999, with a focus on the future of cities and their suburbs; Communities, Populations and the State, 1999-2000, with an emphasis on the 2000 Census; and Religious Communities and Global Culture, 2000-2001, with a concentration on millenarian movements originating in western New York.

The reference room for the center is equipped with computers and related software as well as audio and video recording, editing, and transcription equipment. There is a growing archive of primary source materials (maps, brochures, reports) for use by students and others for local ethnographic research. Ultimately, such work will be archived and publicly disseminated.