Bringing Communities and the University Together: Applied Anthropology at California State University, Long Beach

Abstract

As many universities across the country struggled with the role of applied work within the academy, in the 1990s, the California State University (CSU) system began to embrace the value of collaborations between universities and their larger communities (i.e., local, regional/state, national, global) for "the mutually beneficial exchange and production of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity" (CSULB Center for Community Engagement). The California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) Department of Anthropology established its M.A. Option in Applied Anthropology in 1990, coincident with the new CSU emphasis. Eight years later, the CSU commitment to bring communities and the university together grew into a Center for Community Engagement (CCE) that embraces applied scholarship. The Center's emphasis is on community service learning (connecting theory and practice); community-based participatory research (action-oriented research involving the community in all aspects of the research process, resulting in measurable community impact); and community engagement initiatives (collaborations between CSULB and local, regional, national, and global communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity).Applied anthropology at CSULB has been actively engaged in numerous synergistic collaborations between the university and community through applied faculty research activities, student MA projects, faculty-student collaborations, and classroomcommunity partnerships. In this paper, we highlight three examples of collaborations. These include (1) The Cambodian Community History and Archive Project

Participatory Action Research in Education: Benefits and Tensions Across Contexts

“…While each approach is distinct, these labels overlap in their emphasis on collaborating with the community and sharing research findings with communities as a means of "redressing causes of social inequity" (Brondo, Kent, and Hill 2016, 202). Still, much of the discussion concerning new approaches to research tends to focus on how these approaches impact the relevance of the field of anthropology and the training of new researchers (Brooks 2016;Copeland et al 2016;Glass-Coffin 2016;Hathaway and Kuzin 2007;LeMaster, Quintiliani, and Hunt 2013). The studies presented in this special section contribute to the dialogue concerning participatory research by examining how communities can benefit but also by drawing attention to how community members who collaborated in the research were impacted as individuals.…”