Mapping Cultural and Network Assets in Three Chicago Communities

1. Mapping Cultural and Network Assets in Three Chicago Communities Hank Green Department of Speech Communication Team Engineering Collaboratory SONIC-Science of Networks in Communities University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign This research (CC 035) is supported by the Rockefeller Foundation’s Creativity and Culture Group

2. Acknowledgments • Rockefeller Foundation • The Field Museum, Chicago • Center for Community Understanding and Change • Science of Networks in Communities Research Group (SONIC) • Field researchers from UIC, UIUC, UC, Northwestern • UIUC Department of Speech Communication

3. Center for Cultural Understanding and Change • CCUC is a science-in-action center of cultural and visual anthropologists at the Chicago Field Museum. • research-informed • participatory • media-varied • focused on how science can transform social landscapes. • CCUC uses action-oriented research strategies and works collaboratively with: • Chicago community-based organizations • City Agencies • Non-governmental Organizations in Latin America

4. The UIUC-Field MuseumCollaboration • One-year rapid ethnography and network analysis • Provides more comprehensive analysis of transnational migrant strategies. • Brings network theory and social network analysis to bear on policy formulation for transnational immigrant communities • Creates a visual tool that facilitates communication of research findings

5. So What if You Know Somebody Who Knows Somebody? -Chicago Tribune January 18, 2006

6. Examples of Enabling Networks • Transnational Immigrant Networks, Rockefeller Foundation • Emergency Response Networks, NSF • Networks in Cybercommunities, NCSA/NSF • Tobacco Surveillance, Research & Evaluation Networks, NCI/NIH • Public Radio Exchange, Minnesota Public Radio • Communities of Practice Networks, Procter &Gamble • Food Safety Networks, UIUC Cross-campus Initiative, John Deere • Global Supply Chain Infrastructure, Vodafone

7. Research Objectives • Identify cultural, artistic, and networking capacities and assets of post-NAFTA Mexican migrants. • Analyze how these capacities buffer challenges or obstacles faced by migrants as they traverse the transnational landscape.  • Investigate how cultural knowledge is distributed throughout transnational migrant networks • Understand new forms, new applications of existing forms, and emerging hybrids to explore identity formation, community building strategies, and creative potential of migrants.

8. Network Assets • Network Content • Homophily, heterophily • Network Diversity • Organizational/Institutional Contacts • Transnational Contacts • Inter-Ethnic Contacts • Strength and Intensity of Relationships • Network Structure • Multiplexity of Relationships • Density, Centrality, Centralization • Scanning, Absorptive Capacity, Robustness, Diffusion, Vulnerability

9. Theories of self-interest Theories of social and resource exchange Theories of mutual interest and collective action Theories of contagion Theories of balance Theories of homophily Theories of proximity Theories of co-evolution Why do actors create, maintain, dissolve, and reconstitute network links? Source: Monge, P. R. & Contractor, N. S. (2003). Theories of Communication Networks. New York:Oxford University Press.

10. Transnational and Immigrant Networks:Where do Cultural and Artistic Practices Engage? Deciding to migrate Making a Living Making a ‘Better Life’ ? ?

11. Deciding to MigrateThemes in Previous Research • In most cases, individuals migrate • to improve their financial situation • as a result of connections to others (generally kin) who have already migrated to the United States. (See Phillips & Massey, 2000; Massey et al.,1994; Davis & Stecklov et al., 2002)

12. Deciding to MigrateThemes in Previous Research Key Theoretical Perspectives • Neoclassical economics: international migration as a simple sum of individual cost-benefit decisions undertaken to maximize expected income through international movement • Segmented labor market theory: immigration as demand-driven, built into the economic structure of advanced industrial societies • World systems theory: international migration follows directly from the globalization of the market economy • Network theory: interpersonal ties between migrants, former migrants, and non-migrants in origin and destination increase likelihood of emigration by lowering costs, mitigating risk, and increasing [expected] benefits Source: Massey et al. 1994

13. Deciding to MigrateThemes in Previous Research • Network theory of migration is a big improvement over existing push and pull theories of migration, including world systems theory. (Source: Light et al., 1989)

14. Making a Living IThemes in Previous Research • By being enmeshed in a multiplex social network, immigrants are able to compensate for low social and human capital. • Strong ties are of much greater importance for immigrants than the general population because of low levels of social and human capital that these individuals typically possess. (Waldinger, 1999) • It is the spatial concentration of immigrants that leads to an increased reliance on people of similar origin for survival and the reciprocity implicit in the exchange of social capital that allows immigrant networks to aid members (Coleman, 1988; Portes, 1995; Rogers & Henning, 1999).

15. Making a Living IIThemes in Previous Research • Migration networks feed information to immigrants. • The information flows follow the migration network for natural reasons. • The migration network is a frequently used channel of communication along which all kinds of messages easily and inexpensively flow. • The migration network’s messages are credible because of the relationships of mutual trust that link members. • Migration networks also provide access to various kinds of mutual aid and assistance other than and in addition to information. (Light et al., 1989)

16. Making a Living IIIThemes in Previous Research • Networks improve the efficiency of searches or increase the actual supply of opportunities, or both. Improving searches enables migrants to find jobs and housing faster, more reliably, and with less effort. • Improving searches either brings immigrants into unfilled vacancies in the job market or it transfers opportunities from natives to immigrants. • Such a service makes the networks an ethnic resource of the immigrant population. (Light et al., 1989)

17. Making a “Better Life” IThemes in Previous Research • As migrants develop more [socio-economically] diverse networks, they gain access to better paying jobs, thus more financial security. (Dominguez & Watkins, 2003)

18. Making a “Better Life” IIThemes in Previous Research • Individuals with homogeneous networks (like many Latinos in the United States) may have trouble accessing resources and information they need to succeed. (Schweizer et al., 1998; Fitzgerald, 2004; Raijman & Tienda, 2003; Mirowsky, 1984; see also Fernandez-Kelly, 1990)

19. Making a “Better Life” IIIThemes in Previous Research Bridging and Bonding A concept from Ferdinand Tonnies’ On Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (1963) • Bonding refers to building relationships with people like one’s self (a.k.a. Gemeinschaft). • Bridging refers to building relationships with people different from one’s self (a.k.a Gesellschaft).

20. Cultural and Artistic PracticesThemes in Previous Research • Participation in formal and informal arts practice diversifies a participants' social network. (Wali et al., 2001)

21. Network Composition Hypotheses • Individuals’ Artistic and Cultural Practices will be positively correlated with • Network Heterophily • Network Heterogeneity • Strength and Intensity of Relational Ties • Organizational Ties • Income Level • Employment • Educational Attainment

22. Network Structure Hypotheses • Social Networks of Culturally and Artistically Active People will be more • Multiplex • Connected to external sources of information • Able to distribute information quickly • Likely to maintain relational ties • Able to withstand loss of links or nodes

23. Organizational Network Hypotheses • Artistic and Cultural Organizations will link individuals to each other, and will tie individual to other important organizations such as social services, schools, labor organizations, etc. • Artistic and Cultural activities may comprise a large part of ‘bridging and bonding’ activities.

24. MIA Methods • 3 Focus groups • Extended interviews with 50+ key informants from focus groups • Participant observation at approximately 75 public events, social gatherings, work places and domestic milieus • Ethnography and network elicitation (targeting 120 respondents) • Network visualization and analysis • Multi-media results presentation (see Agar, 1996: The Professional Stranger)

25. Focus Groups • Conduct focus groups to generate lists of key people, places, and events in the Mexican/Mexican-American community in Chicago • places where recent immigrants ‘bridge’ and ‘bond’ • Ethnographers follow up focus groups by interviewing key informants

26. Participant Observation • Ethnographers conduct participant observation in three Chicago neighborhoods • South Chicago • Albany Park (North Side) • Aurora (Western Suburb)

27. Three Chicago Communities Albany Park South Chicago Aurora

28. Network Asset Mapping Exercise: NAME • Ethnographers contact participants and administer network questionnaire with tablet PCs. • Ethnographers conduct interviews about network assets. • Institutional/Organizational Ties • Personal contacts

29. Organizational NAME • Conducted with 25 key organizations in the Chicago Mexican Community • Based on a list derived from focus groups, ethnographers’ notes, and CCUC research (the list contained 159 organizations). • Organizations chosen to reflect the relative frequencies of each type of organization in the list. (PPS) • Churches, schools, social services, artistic and cultural organizations, informal organizations, social clubs, labor organizations, etc. • Sample is non-random, to facilitate the ‘rapid ethnography’ approach.

30. Organizational NAME • Organizational Social Networks • Providing Resources • Receiving Resources • Reasons for Not Collaborating • Organizational Demographics

31. Individual NAME • Conducted with 77 informants chosen in a stratified approach • 2/3 chosen using randomized spatial approaches developed for the locations determined to be key for Mexican immigrant activity • Churches • Sporting Events • Workers’ Rights Groups • Social Services • ESL Classes • Arts/Cultural Events • 1/3 chosen by ethnographers from their key informants

32. Individual NAME • Immigrant social networks • Who immigrants talk with • cultural participation, jobs, social services, church, informal artistic activities • Which events they attend • What organizations they contact • What technologies they use • Compare across respondents • Innovative visual data entry approach

37. Substantive Outcomes • Baseline data on Chicago immigrant networks and cultural practices to supplement data on economic, and political dimensions of social life • Explore network assets of recent Mexican Immigrants • Content • Structure • Understand how arts and cultural activities enable (and are enabled by) network assets, leading to “Better Lives”

38. Methodological Outcomes • Integrate qualitative ethnographic research methods, network analysis, and geographical information into a new research tool • Introduce a scalable methodology for mapping cultural and network assets • Develop metrics analyzing cultural and network assets to better inform policy decisions • Create a multi-media research report incorporating visual and audio documentation, network graphs, and asset maps.

39. Initial Findings

40. Overall Summary of MIA Activities

41. Arts and Culture Activities

42. Organizational Connections

43. Distribution of Organizational Ties

44. Organizational Interaction Summary

45. Reasons for No Collaboration

46. Respondent Demography 100% are Mexican Immigrants 69% are female Most respondents live in South Chicago (16%) Rogers Park (11%) Back of the Yards (8%) Most respondents worked in South Chicago (11%) Cicero (8%) Pilsen (8%) Rogers Park (8%) 59% have some college education or a college degree 50% of respondents are married, 33% are single 100% of married individuals report a spouse living in the US

47. Artistic and Cultural Practices

48. Artistic and Cultural Linkages

49. Attending Artistic and Cultural Practices with Friends • 77% of the social relationships that respondents reported involved attending artistic and/or cultural activities (n=379) • Of that 77% • 46% involved attendance a few times a year • 26% involved attendance a few times a month • 13% involved attendance a few times a week

50. Other Activities • 87% report learning artistic or cultural practices from their friends • 57% report participating in informal artistic activities • 44% report attending work or union meetings with friends • 37% report participating in formal artistic or creative activities