CISSR SPOTLIGHT

Michael Albertus investigates the property rights gap in recent book talk

Within the last century, over a third of countries around the world have conducted major land redistribution programs that entailed expropriating the land holdings of landowners and reallocating them to the landless. However, most governments that redistributed land through such reform programs withheld property rights to beneficiaries, producing what 20-21 CISSR Faculty Fellow Michael Albertus calls “the property rights gap”.

Given that property rights can generate investment and growth, why would countries forgo this path? Professor Albertus responds to this questions in his new book, Property Without Rights: Origins and Consequences of the Property Rights Gap, which is based on original fieldwork and archival research undertaken across the Americas, Southern Europe, and China. In a recent book talk moderated by Susan Stokes and hosted by Seminary Co-op, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the Center for International Social Science Research, Professor Albertus shares further insight on his research methods, the consequences of specific reform programs, and how land and property rights are linked to poverty and inequality.

LAST CALL: 21-22 Lloyd & Susanne Rudolph Field Research Awards

The Center for International Social Science Research (CISSR) announces our call for the 2021-2022 Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph Research Award which supports MA and PhD students conducting short-term research abroad. The grant provides students with resources that can be used to carry out fieldwork in support of MA theses, qualifying papers, pilot projects, and/or portions of their dissertation research. Now in its fourth year, the Rudolph Awards have supported graduate scholars in a range of disciplines completing rigorous international and transnational research projects. You can read more about past Rudolph awardees here.

ELIGIBILITY & REQUIREMENTS

University of Chicago graduate students (MA or PhD) in the Division of the Social Sciences are eligible. Students engaging in original data-collection efforts and traveling to access archival materials are especially encouraged to apply. Other allowable expenses include purchasing datasets, specializes software licenses, archival access subscriptions, books & primary documents, compensation for field research assistants, and translation or transcription services.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

CISSR will provide graduate students with up to $5,000 for fieldwork expenses. Funds will be disbursed in June 2021 (Summer Quarter).

APPLICATIONS

Review all requirements for applying on our website. Apply here by Friday, April 2, 2021. For questions, contact Alexis Puzon at apuzon@uchicago.edu.

Application Deadline: April 2, 2021

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UPCOMING EVENTS

AROUND TOWN & DOWN THE ROAD

NEWS & RESEARCH ROUNDUP

Racism, misogyny, and anti-sex work stigma intersect in the Atlanta shooting, writes Kimberly Kay Hoang

On March 16, eight people, six of them Asian women, were killed by a white gunman targeting Atlanta-area spas. In a new essay for Vox, 18-19 CISSR Faculty Fellow Kimberly Kay Hoang examines this tragedy in the context of histories of misogyny and anti-Asian racism in the United States. She also examines discourses that stigmatize the labor of women working in the sex work industry.  “If they were [sex workers], would that mean their lives mattered less?” she asks, referring to the women killed on March 16. “The answer is a resounding no.” The names of the victims are Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, and Paul Andre Michels.

Ensuring the future of water sustainability in the Mekong

CISSR Faculty Fellows Sabina Shaikh and Alan Kolata, along with ten additional co-authors representing an array of disciplines, recently published the article “A Scientific Research Agenda for Water Sustainability in the Mekong”. In it, they advocate for an interdisciplinary, social-ecological approach to studying the Mekong, a river that millions of people rely on for food security and livelihoods but which is experiencing dramatic modifications. The paper is currently available open-access here.

Three CISSR sociologists explore the Global South in most recent issue of ‘Contexts’ 

20-21 CISSR Faculty Fellow Marco Garrido recently served as guest editor for Contexts, a journal of public sociology. In their introduction, Professor Garrido and co-editor Victoria Reyes write about the proliferation of ethnographies of the Global South by sociologists in American academic institutions. “The new ethnographers of the Global South do not feel compelled to justify their fieldsites in terms of their relevance to the United States,” argue Garrido and Reyes. “They find these places theoretically interesting in their own right, and see in them an opportunity to rejuvenate traditional categories of sociological thought.” The most recent issue of Contexts also features essays from 19-20 Dissertation Fellow Sneha Annavarapu and 19-20 Rudolph Field Research Grantee Pranathi Diwakar.

Returning native land is overdue, writes Michael Albertus

On March 15, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Department of the Interior. In a new op-ed for The Hill, 20-21 CISSR Faculty Fellow Michael Albertus argues that in this new role, Secretary Haaland encounters a unique opportunity to address the systemic dispossession of native land. According to Professor Albertus, the U.S. lags behind many other countries in its treatment of Indigenous land claims, including Canada, Bolivia, Colombia, and Mexico. Secretary Haaland should now use her position to push for land restitution.

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

In a guest lecture for the Chicago Futures series, 20-21 CISSR Faculty Fellow Sabina Shaikh examines Chicago’s stewardship of water: a resource that was integral to Chicago’s historic expansion and which remains central to its future. Despite the water-related challenges facing Chicago and other Midtwestern cities, Professor Shaikh and other panelists offer a novel vision for water as a catalyst for creating a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable city. 

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