无码专区

At first glance, the work being championed by Heather 翱鈥橪别补谤测, Will Schanbacher and Christian Wells may seem unrelated. 翱鈥橪别补谤测, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, is interested in water politics; Schanbacher, an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies, cares deeply about food sovereignty; and Wells, a professor of anthropology, is improving human and environmental health outcomes of redevelopment efforts in underserved communities.

Beyond the fact that the three are faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences, they have something else in common: a belief in the transformative power of collaboration.  

鈥淔aculty and students at 无码专区 have such incredible opportunities to bridge the 鈥榯own and gown鈥� divide by sharing their time, expertise and resources with communities to build capacity for positive change,鈥� said Wells.  

By focusing on collaborative, community research, the trio are making an impact and transforming the way others think about everything from coastal change and water sources to food security.

Heather 翱鈥橪别补谤测, PhD

Heather 翱鈥橪别补谤测, an assistant professor on the St. Petersburg campus, is reinventing the way we analyze coastal change. Along with her , 翱鈥橪别补谤测 has transformed social, economic and environmental data into music. This university-wide collaboration has broadened the dialogue around coastal change through creativity and innovation.

鈥淚鈥檓 understanding water from a community perspective by partnering with women鈥檚 organizations and informal, illegal settlement communities in Delhi, India, to working with Tampa Bay鈥檚 subsistence fishing communities,鈥� 翱鈥橪别补谤测 said. 鈥淚 prioritize mutual understanding and active engagement in data collection by transforming our findings into something you can participate in and interact with in a very real way.鈥�

翱鈥橪别补谤测 believes that listening to the impacts of watery disasters on everyday people is an essential aspect of data collection. Her focus is on listening, first and foremost.

鈥淚n order for communities to be resilient, we need not only formal official data, but we also need to listen to community members about how their intersectional identities affect the way decision makers imagine those processes and impacts of watery disasters,鈥� 翱鈥橪别补谤测 said. 鈥淪o, through actually listening to lots of our Floridian neighbors, we're able to plan better policies and build more economic and environmental resilience so that the next time we have a water threat, we're ready, our communities are ready and our families are ready.鈥�

Though her work focuses heavily on Florida鈥檚 coasts, 翱鈥橪别补谤测 is always thinking of the way water 鈥� and the issues surrounding it 鈥� connect all people.

鈥淎ll of us as humans grow up with a heavy reliance on water,鈥� 翱鈥橪别补谤测 said. 鈥淚 can track my life through moving through the Great Lakes, to the Ganges in India, to the mighty Mississippi and now to the Gulf. And there wasn't one place that I lived where questions 鈥� such as who owns our water, who is keeping it clean, who is receiving information about the risks 鈥� have been irrelevant.鈥�

For 翱鈥橪别补谤测, these questions are what fuel her research.  

鈥淚 think, as an anthropologist, I'm really interested in the gaps between the way plans ought to go and the way they actually happen in our real, chaotic world,鈥� said 翱鈥橪别补谤测, who is also the Director of the EcoFem Lab and Crescendo Project.

Will Schanbacher, PhD 

Will Schanbacher believes food is a human right. 

He spends much of his time working with the WellFed Community and the Healthy 22nd Street Community Garden, two nonprofits dedicated to building healthier communities through sustainable food systems. His interest in local food sovereignty research began when he moved to East Tampa and started building relationships within the community.

鈥淚 wanted to see if my research in global food sovereignty could be applied to local, urban settings,鈥� Schanbacher, co-founder and director of the 无码专区 Food Sovereignty Initiative, said.  

Both programs have had a transformative impact on the lives of community members.

鈥淭he Healthy 22nd Street project has helped people start growing their own food, which also introduced them to new healthy recipes,鈥� Schanbacher said. 鈥淧eople mentioned saving money on their weekly groceries, which has become a part of the non-profit's mission statement. Some gardeners mentioned they were able to reduce or come off medications because of physical health improvements.鈥�

Working with WellFed Community on a USDA Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production grant, the FSI helped create a food sovereignty toolkit that provides researchers with a framework for developing their own food sovereignty initiatives. Drawing from the core pillars of food sovereignty 鈥� the right to food, prioritizing local production and local producers, cultural food access, ecologically sound agricultural practices and the flourishing of local communities rather that corporate interests 鈥� this toolkit provides practical activities for hands-on community engagement. Examples include integrating research design and community building through community meals, photovoice research that allows community members to tell their own food stories through pictures and an evaluation matrix for organizations building their food sovereignty projects.  
 
The process of developing the toolkit will be published this summer in the peer reviewed Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development.鈥�

Christian Wells, PhD

Christian Wells, director of the Center for Brownfields Research & Redevelopment, is working collaboratively with the residents of Tallevast, a historically African American neighborhood in Manatee County that was contaminated over several decades by waste water from a manufacturing plant. While state officials received reports of pollution in 2000, it was not until 2004 that residents of the area were informed.  

鈥淲e are working collaboratively to identify and clean up harmful contamination in the soil and groundwater so they can live healthier lives,鈥� Wells said. 鈥淲e are also creating a shared vision and strategic plan for community redevelopment that features health and wellness as core attributes.鈥�

Wells feels that as a university, we have a responsibility to the communities around us.

鈥淚 partner with communities like Tallevast because you can鈥檛 have a strong university without a strong community, and you can鈥檛 have a strong community without a strong university,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ur fates are tied together.鈥� 
 
Even more than university involvement, Wells feels that community input is essential. 
 
鈥淚 became heavily involved in community-based research when I served as founding director of 无码专区鈥檚 Office of Sustainability, where I learned that those closer to the problem are closer to the solution,鈥� Wells said. 鈥淐ommunities know what the challenges are and how they want them addressed. Working closely with communities and putting them in the driver鈥檚 seat when it comes to making decisions about their future is absolutely essential for sustainable and equitable development.鈥� 

Wells believes that this work will impact not only this community鈥檚 present, but its future as well. 
 
鈥淲ith the support of the National Science Foundation, we have conducted oral histories with many Tallevast residents to understand the long-term impacts of segregation on environmental health,鈥� he explained. 鈥淎nd with resources from the Environmental Protection Agency, we have laid the groundwork for community revitalization by conducting assessments and cleanup of the local soil and groundwater. For this research, instead of focusing on the problems, we identified the hopes that residents share about their future. This way, our research is not about problems, but about helping people achieve their dreams. This is what I call 鈥榙reamwork,鈥� which centers transformation, rather than transaction, in research relationships.鈥� 
 
Learn more about Schanbacher鈥檚, 翱鈥橪别补谤测鈥檚 and Wells鈥� research, as well as the Department of Religious Studies and the Department of Anthropology. If you鈥檙e interested in supporting their research, please contact Kelly Addington, senior director of development at (813) 974-5764.