Environmental Justice Legacy Initiative, Oral History Project

The Environmental Justice Legacy Initiative offers an ASU fully online, undergraduate student an opportunity to build research skills while learning about social movements in general, and the US environmental justice movement in particular. The goals of the project are twofold. First, it will be used in Dr. Tracy Perkins’s ongoing research on the US environmental justice movement, with an emphasis on the history of the environmental justice movement in the Southwest. Second, the project will work towards the creation of an oral history collection available to other researchers and the general public.

The learning objectives for the students are to 1) become conversant in the core objectives, activities, challenges and outcomes of the US environmental justice movement, 2) to learn about how research is conducted. In the latter category, they will learn about community-engaged research practices, oral history interviewing techniques, and how to competently identify potentially sensitive topics discussed in multiple cultural contexts in oral history transcripts. They will also improve their editing skills.

The expected time commitment per week is 10 hours, inclusive of group meetings. All work will be conducted asynchronously, on the student’s own schedule, with the exception of weekly or biweekly group meetings with Dr. Perkins and 1-2 other student research assistants.

Students will complete their research tasks on their own schedule, asynchronously. This will involve, 1) completing the CITI trainings on research with human subjects and responsible conduct of research for undergraduate students, 2) correcting, editing and annotating the transcripts of the interviews completed by Dr. Perkins, and 3) completing a brief reflection paper in which they assess what they have learned and how it relates to their ongoing learning and professional development goals. The interview transcripts will be drawn from existing interviews Dr. Perkins has already conducted and potentially also new interviews she will conduct over the course of the group project.

If you are interested in participating, please send a CV or resume, along with a cover letter detailing your interest in the position, to Dr. Perkins at [email protected]. Applications will be accepted and evaluated on a rolling basis until the position is filled.