Examples of successful proposals

Toward Culturally Sensitive Designs - Developing a handbook that bridges theory and practice

Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, Department of Design, Housing & Apparel, College of Design, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Goals and Context

In the United States, over 33 million people are foreign born and over 54 million speak a language other than English at home. Displaced groups often struggle to find places that engender a sense of attachment, define their identity, and sustain their well-being. Having an understanding of how design, culture, and identity intersect in the global era can expand the variables through which designers can create spaces that support various ways of living, that is, culturally sensitive designs.

Using knowledge from studying cultural differences for 15 years, I am writing a book that fills this gap in the literature and serves as a handbook by which designers can respond to culture in design. The book’s interdisciplinary nature presents the challenge of translating complex understandings of culture into language that resonates with designers, professionals who are trained to think visually. This Imagine Grant will enhance the book’s appeal by supporting: a) the creation of visual imagery to accompany the book’s text—-maps that highlight cultural diversity; house plans that illustrate culturally sensitive design solutions; diagrams that relate theoretical frameworks, etc.; and b) the pre-testing of the book by professionals for feedback.

Notable Recent Accomplishments

(2010). (Im)materiality and practice – Craft making as a medium for reconstructing Ojibwe identity in domestic spaces. Home Cultures, 7(1), 57-86.
(2009). The aesthetics of displacement – Hmong, Somali, and Mexican home-making practices in Minnesota. International Journal of Consumer Studies (Special issue on Consumer Issues in Housing), 33, 541-549.
(2009). The spatiality of veiling – Muslim women living in Minnesota homes. International Journal of Architectural Research, 3(2), 35-50.
(2009). Re/claiming the past – Constructing Ojibwe identity in Minnesota homes. Design Studies, 30(4), 462-481.
(2008). Kitchens as cultural mediums – The food experiences of Mexican immigrants in Minnesota. Housing and Society (Special Issue on Kitchens and Baths), 35(2), 97-116.

Keywords

Book, visuals, culture, design, displacement

Use of Previous Imagine Fund Awards

In Spring 2010, I was granted an Imagine Fund Single Course Release Support to continue the work on the book that began with my Fall 2009 semester leave. This helped me structure the book’s outline, draft Chapter 5, and begin drafts of all other chapters. This Fall’s IAS Fellowship will help me come closer to the goal of completing the book within the next two years, furthering my own, the Program’s and the College’s goals.

The book has eight chapters. The introductory chapter states the problem and the book’s approach. Chapter 1 builds the case for why designers should engage with culture. Chapter 2 serves as a crash-course on culture, using interdisciplinary theories and findings in ways that are relevant to practitioners. Chapter 3 untangles the spatial implications of cultural expressions in displacement such as religion, dress, food, and family. Chapter 4 focuses on the built environment. Chapter 5 provides practical guidance so that designers can gather knowledge needed during the design process. Chapter 6 challenges designers to go beyond and fully participate in debates around difference. And Chapter 7 gives examples of what culturally sensitive designs can be, from residential to public buildings and urban spaces.

Proposed Budget

NO other funds are available to cover the cost of developing the visual imagery for the book and the pre-testing of the book by professionals.

The $5000 Imagine Funds will be used as follows:

A) 32 images x 4 hours/image x $9.14/hr = $1,169.92
Cover the cost of two undergraduate students, an interior design student and a graphic design student, who will work together to develop the visual imagery for the book—eight chapters with approximately four images per chapter makes around 32 images.

B) 5% for one semester—Fall 2011: $1,379
A graduate RA from Graphic Design who will help supervise the undergraduate students and give them overall direction.

C) An honorarium of $400 to five practitioners: $2,000
Two designers, two affordable housing providers, and one policy maker who will review the book’s draft and provide feedback that will solidify the book’s content and approach. In its final stage, the book will have eight chapters at around 30 pages each. To review a maximum total of 240 pages, it is estimated to take between 15-20 hours. With a $400 bonus, it comes to $20/hr, which seems to be a fair compensation for the reviewers’ time.

D) Other: $451.08
Color prints, copies of the book’s draft for the pre-testing, etc.

Total: $5,000

Additional Resources (List and details)

Institute of Advanced Studies Fellowship, Short-Term Outreach Projects for Issues in Minnesota grant

Project Time Frame

This year's funds will be sufficient to complete this project.

Project Time Frame Detail

The goal is to have the book completed within the next two years—Fall 2012. With the bulk of the writing done by Summer 2011, efforts can be concentrated on developing the visual imagery and pre-testing:

1) Visual imagery: If the Imagine Fund supports this project, the development of the visual imagery will begin Fall 2011. The Graduate Assistant will spearhead this effort and give it the momentum needed so that by the end of Fall 2011, much of the conceptualization of what the imagery will entail will be in place. It is anticipated that the execution of the actual visual imagery will be completed by Spring 2012.

2) Pre-testing: The pre-testing will be completed by Summer 2012. The reviewers would have been identified by Spring 2011 as they would be among the participants of the study noted above.

A manuscript in which images and text complement each other has greater appeal for publishers that cater to the design community and therefore, between Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 proposals will also be submitted to targeted publishing groups.

This project is not anticipating additional funding in future years. If this proposal is honored, the book’s completion will not be relying on additional funding from the Imagine Fund.

The Architecture Photography of Balthazar Korab

John Comazzi, Department of Architecture, College of Design, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Goals and Context

This proposal seeks support to offset the cost of a research assistant as well as the costs of securing image rights and pre-press image production necessary for the publication of a monograph on the life and career of Balthazar Korab, one of the most celebrated and prolific photographers of architecture from the twentieth century. While Korab’s photography has been widely acknowledged for its contribution to the collective visual culture representing mid-century Modern architecture and design, there has never been a publication dedicated solely to his life and career. Support from the Imagine Fund will enable me to complete the image collection and production for this book (currently under agreement and in contract negotiations with a major commercial press) that will advance new scholarship on architecture photography through a critical study of Balthazar Korab’s exceptional career. More specifically, I will use the funds to pay licensing fees and pre-press production costs to the Korab Archive for the use of their images. Additionally, funds from this award will be used to hire a research assistant to finalize research, organize references and help prepare the final manuscript for the book (estimated submission date July 2011).

Notable Recent Accomplishments

CONFERENCES
1.) 2010 - “Change Over Time: The J. Irwin Miller House in the Photography of Balthazar Korab,” Where Do You Stand?: ACSA National Conference, March 3-7, 2011, Montréal, Canada, (Paper accepted for delivery and publication in proceedings).
2.) 2010 - “Photography Matters: Balthazar Korab’s Legacy in the Saarinen Office,” The Place of Research / The Research of Place: The Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) and the European Association for Architectural Education (EAAE)

EXHIBITIONS
3.) 2010 - “Balthazar Korab’s Photography and Eero Saarinen’s Architecture,” Virka Gallery, Helsinki, Finland, March – April, 2010, role: Curitorial image selection, and contributor of exhibition content on the photography of Balthazar Korab.
4.) 2010 - “Inflected Modernism: The Architecture Photography of Balthazar Korab,” University of Wisconsin, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Milwaukee, WI, January – February, 2010, role: Curator and author of exhibition content.

PUBLICATIONS
5.) 2009 - “Balthazar Korab,” EXIT No. 36 Architecture: The Professional View, November 2009, pp. 96-101. ISSN 1577272-1

Keywords

Architecture, photography, design, publication, manuscript

Use of Previous Imagine Fund Awards

In 2009 I received an Imagine Fund Grant for the development of an exhibition on the architecture photography of Balthazar Korab entitled “Inflected Modernism.” This exhibition was shown at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in January and February of 2010 and I delivered a lecture and gallery talk to coincide with the opening. There are plans for this exhibition to travel.
In 2010 I received an Imagine Fund Grant ($4000) that is being used to pay a portion of the overall subvention funds requested by the publisher to offset printing and production costs in producing the book (total subvention request = $15,000). The final contract is in negotiation and these funds will be paid when the final agreement has been signed.

Proposed Budget

Costs
License Agreement and Pre-Press Image Production ($75/image x 40 images) = $3000
Graduate Student Research Assistant (100 hours during Summer 2011) = $1997
Total costs = $4997

NOTE: while I have received other grants for the development of this book project, I currently have no other sources of funding available to me for the sole purposes of Image Production and a Research Assistant. For example, I have received two grants totaling $11,000 (Imagine Fund Grant 2010 and Metropolitan Design Center Faculty Grant), however this funding is being used to pay subvention funds that have been requested by the publisher as part of the publishing agreement to offset printing costs (total subvention request = $15,000). Therefore, the funding from these two grants and are not available for the purposes of the above image licensing or research assistantship.

Additional Resources (List and details)

Faculty Development Funds

Project Time Frame

This year's funds will be sufficient to complete this project.

Project Time Frame Detail

The current publishing contract (currently in negotiation) stipulates a completion date for the forthcoming manuscript in July 2011. Therefore, if awarded, I anticipate using the funding within the first year of receiving the grant.

The Agon of Comparative Literature

Shaden Tageldin, Department of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Goals and Context

Why does an ostensibly internationalist field like comparative literature--even now--assign its origin to nineteenth-century Europe and its elaboration to the postwar United States, ignoring its parallel invention in non-Western contexts like the Arabic-speaking world? By reassessing the act of literary comparison from the latter perspective, might we lay bare the "democratic" imperialism that underpins the genesis of the field? These are key questions I pursue in my second book, _The Agon of Comparative Literature_, which I will continue to research and write in 2011-12. Analyzing the rise of comparative literature in Egypt and greater Syria between 1834 and 1936, my project contests Eurocentric visions of the discipline, which often divorce empire from the comparative impulse. I argue that the dynamics of modern literary comparison emerge in the fraught space of literary/political relation between imperial Europe and the Arabic-speaking world. To limn that space, the book explores the redefinitions of "literature," "prose," and "poetry" in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Arabic, French, and English literatures. Modern Arabic redefinitions of such terms, I suggest, gradually cede to the dominance of European norms.

Notable Recent Accomplishments

1) 135,000-word scholarly monograph, in press and forthcoming from the University of California Press (2011).

2) 9,000-word refereed, single-authored scholarly journal article, in press and forthcoming in _PMLA_ (2011). _PMLA_, one of the most selective peer-reviewed journals in the humanities, is the journal of the Modern Language Association.

3) 13,000-word refereed, single-authored scholarly journal article, in press and forthcoming in a special issue of _Comparative Literature Studies_ (2010). _Comparative Literature Studies_ is a major peer-reviewed scholarly journal in the field of comparative literature.

4) 13,000-word refereed, single-authored scholarly journal article, published in _Comparative Literature Studies_ (2009).

5) 7,500-word refereed, single-authored scholarly book chapter, in an edited volume published by Cambridge University Press (2009).

Keywords

comparative literature, imperialism, Arabic, French, English

Use of Previous Imagine Fund Awards

My 2009 and 2010 Imagine Fund awards are either already spent or earmarked for outstanding expenses. With 2009 funds, I purchased research materials and defrayed permissions costs for my first book. Remaining 2009 funds will reimburse permissions fees to be paid in 2011, when that book is published, and travel to Egypt in July-August 2010, to begin the current project. In Egypt, I studied Rifa'a al-Tahtawi's 1867 Arabic translation of Fénelon and identified intertexts that shed light on that translation, meeting 2009 objectives. Fulfilling 2010 goals, I also examined early Arabic reflections on comparative literature: Ruhi al-Khalidi's French/Arabic literary history (1904); Sulayman al-Bustani's introduction to his 1904 translation of Homer; and Khalil Hindawi's study (1936). As I did not find the 1835 Arabic translation of Daniel Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ attributed to Faris al-Shidyaq, however, I will use some 2010 funds to travel to the British Library in London, which holds this translation. Remaining 2010 funds will support travel to Paris in 2011-12, where I will explore the French-Arabic literary relations that underwrote al-Khalidi's study and al-Shidyaq's first novelistic experiment in Arabic, published in Paris in 1855.

Proposed Budget

With a 2011 award, I will complete foundational research for my book. To continue in-depth work in Arabic materials not readily available in the US, I will need to return to Egypt. Thanks to a 2009 award, I have begun to analyze Rifa'a al-Tahtawi’s Arabic translation (1867) of Fénelon's _Les Aventures de Télémaque_ (1699), the first major Egyptian translation from European literature. Further research in Egypt on a 2011 award will help me link that translation to other nineteenth-century Arab engagements with Fénelon and, via Fénelon, with early European literary modernity and its relationship to Greco-Roman antiquity. At the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, I will examine 'Abd Allah Husayn al-Misri's Arabic translation of Fénelon’s _Abrégé de la vie des plus illustres philosophes de l’antiquité_, published in 1836-37 as _Mukhtasar tarjamat mashahir qudama' al-falasifa_. At the American University in Cairo Library and Egyptian National Library, I will consider Muhammad 'Abduh's early reaction (1881) to al-Tahtawi's rendering of _Télémaque_ and to the ethical project of the novel in the official gazette _al-Waqa'i' al-Misriyya_ and assess other debates on changing prose and poetic style in Arabic periodicals of the period. Further, I will compare the form of 'A'isha Taymur's _Nata'ij al-Ahwal fi al-Aqwal wa al-Af'al_ (1888)--arguably the first novel by an Arab woman--to that of al-Tahtawi's translation, a key influence. The library of Cairo's Women and Memory Forum, which holds recent Egyptian scholarship and rare materials on Taymur, will be crucial to my work.

Finally, building on preliminary research at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in summer 2010, I will closely examine the pre-print proof copy of the first 3 volumes (over 1,000 pages) of 'Ali Mubarak's _'Alam al-Din_ (1882), sometimes considered the "first" Egyptian novel, and order reproductions of key sections. The novel's characters recall al-Tahtawi's translation of Fénelon: an English Orientalist and an English sailor each play Mentor to an Egyptian Telemachus, the elder to an Azharite shaykh, the younger to the shaykh's son. By studying Mubarak's emendations to this proof, I hope to better grasp the authorial decisions that animated the transition from traditional prose narrative forms to modern novelistic ones.

My budget is as follows:

Round-trip economy airfare--Minneapolis, MN, to Cairo, Egypt: $1,900.00
Lodging (6 weeks)--Cairo and Alexandria: $2,700.00
Photocopying + book expenses: $400.00
TOTAL: $5,000.00

Additional Resources (List and details)

Research Funds

Project Time Frame

Additional funding may be requested for future phases of this project.

Project Time Frame Detail

By early 2012, two chapters of the book will be complete; on the basis of these chapters, I plan to propose the manuscript to a major U.S. university press by the end of 2012, and I expect to finish a complete draft of the manuscript by 2013-14. Since I will be returning to Egypt this year to conduct a closer examination of materials I was only able to identify or survey on my 2010 research visit, I expect that this year's award will enable me to complete all foundational Arabic-language research for the proposed project. I will make every effort to conclude this phase of my work with a 2011 Imagine Fund award. It is possible, however, that future work on this book will require further research in U.S. or British libraries. If so, I will submit a new request for funding, focused on new material.

The Legacy of Solon Verret

Jean Perrault, Department of Fine Arts and Music, University of Minnesota Duluth

Goals and Context

Some of the great tragedies of the January 12 earthquake were the loss of life and destruction of important landmarks: parliament buildings, national palace, national cathedrals, public libraries, public and private schools…. Irreplaceable artifacts laid exposed to the element. One such manila envelope contained original manuscripts of the little known Haitian composer Solon Verret. The envelope was rescued and taken to the Verret family which subsequently requested my help in preserving the music.
This proposal aims to secure funding to travel to Haiti, sift through the vestiges and assess the condition of the manuscripts. Salvageable samples will be copied, catalogued, edited, digitized and assembled into a booklet. The name Verret was widely known in Haitian music circles as a concert pianist, a brilliant man and a master teacher. Nowhere, not even the internet, can one find anything on his contribution as a composer. While in Haiti, I will use that opportunity to find out more about this obscure Haitian composer. After compiling and sorting through the data, a lecture/performance of his music will then be scheduled in Weber Hall, with world-renowned pianist Daryl Hollister.

Notable Recent Accomplishments

For nearly 15 years, I have been very involved in the editing process of the piano work of Haitian classical composers. My collaboration with the Société de Recherche et Diffusion de la Musique Haïtienne (Canada) continues to bear fruit.
On Sunday October 24, I was invited by the Flushing Council for the Arts and the Institute Monfort to perform a recital at the Flushing Town Hall.
In September 2010, I was named one of four Community Liaisons for the Minnesota State Arts Board. The goal is to recruit artists of all kinds and advise them on Grant Opportunities available through the MN State Arts Board.
In April 2009, my latest composition, Brother Malcolm, was premièred by Dr. Husby and Dr. Chernyshev. It has since been in high demand for performances throughout the state of Minnesota. This composition, an imaginary conversation between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, was written to commemorate the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States.
In January 2009, I was invited to deliver the keynote address at the Haitian American Leadership Organization annual conference (Miami, Florida). It was a great honor to be asked to speak on: “Educating the youth: maintaining cultural identity”.

Keywords

World music, nationalism, piano, legacy

Use of Previous Imagine Fund Awards

In 2010, I received my first Imagine Fund award to recreate Shirley Graham’s Opera “Tom-Tom”. Although the opera received its première in 1932, the final score and parts have long been lost. All that remains is a working copy of a score with some degree of what the composer intended as orchestration. So far I have secured a copy of the score and will soon begin the process of digitizing it. Next I will start the editing process and adding new orchestration in incomplete sections as needed. Recreating the score and making it widely available through publication would generate interest in this very important score. This opera, from a much respected African American author and Oberlin-trained composer, depicts a very difficult era in American history. It can very easily be used as a vehicle to teach/educate and engage students of all ages about this period in our history.

Proposed Budget

Travel Expenses to Haiti - $1,000
Digitizing and editing of manuscripts (using Finale) - $1,500
Publishing, duplicating and binding of selected works - $250
Guest artist fee for lecture/recital - $1,500
Travel expense for guest artist - $750

Additional Resources (List and details)

No other funds, external and internal, have been made available for this project.

I will draw on my vast network of friends and musicologist to complete this project.

Project Time Frame

This year’s funds will be sufficient to complete this project.

Project Time Frame Detail

I will travel to Haiti during the summer months (2011) to assess the condition of the manuscripts. An additional month will be needed to enter the music notation and digitize the score. Expected completion of this project is December 2011. Although this project does not rely on additional years for completion, it is my hope that future similar projects will be funded to preserve the arts of notable Haitian artists. Several other institutions and musicologists have already started to accumulate information on Haitian Classical Composers. The University of Minnesota has the opportunity to be on the pioneering end of what is sure to become an important area in ethnomusicology.

Re-Imaging and Imagining the Beautiful and Sublime: Phase 5

Steve Bardolph, Department of Art and Design, University of Minnesota Duluth

Goals and Context

My goal is to share, through immersive photographic panoramas, the awe I experience at the flaming shining grandeur in the world around me. I want to help people see, even in everyday events and places, life charged with deep freshness and bright wonder. These panoramas are my primary artistic direction, and I've been exploring the human interaction with beautiful and sublime landscapes for 18 years. These works are like a Japanese garden, at once presenting an awe-inspiring and complete whole, as well as a rich tapestry of individual details spread across singular moments in time. They ground the viewer in real space while employing graphic design’s familiar and comfortable grid, yet they break the window of conventional perspective by reaching around and behind to shift points of view and invite an exuberant interaction with place and time.

Thanks in large part to previous Imagine Awards I have upgraded cameras to gather these visions and a purpose built MacPro computer to assemble them. With this proposal I'm asking for color calibrated widescreen computer monitors that will enable me to accurately see and efficiently construct these massive panoramas.

Notable Recent Accomplishments

1. Vis-à-Vis Faculty Art Exhibition, "Pine Lake Panorama" (4' x 10' archival inkjet print), September 2010–October 2010, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Minneapolis, MN.

2. UMD Art+Design Faculty Exhibition, "Reflections on Cloud Gate," "Beneath the Bean," and "Reflections of Millennium Park" (three 3' x 9' archival inkjet panoramas), September 2009–January 2010, Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN.

3. Best of Show, Calvin Alumni Photography Competition, "Orange Hawkweed" and "Lighthouse Honeycomb," (two 3' x 3' 360º layered archival inkjet panoramas), February–March 2008, Grand Rapids, MI.

4. Across Space, Time, and Meaning, “Gene Bank: Old Growth Forest, Three-Mile Island, Minnesota,” a collaborative installation with Alan Sonfist, January 2006–January 2007, Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN.

5. IdeaFestival, "Japan House Panorama," Oberg Mountain Panorama," and "Times Square Panorama" (three 15' x 27' digital panoramas on world's highest resolution seamless display), October 2006, Louisville, KY.

Keywords

panorama, sublime, beauty, widescreen, calibration

Use of Previous Imagine Fund Awards

I have been extremely fortunate with two rounds of Imagine Fund awards supporting earlier phases of this same project. In 2009 with $3,000 I upgraded digital cameras to gather natural and urban landscape photos with increased clarity and resolution in Minnesota, Utah, Illinois, and Hawaii. I now have a vast library of forest, mountain, city, and ocean images I'm assembling with an Apple MacPro computer, funded in part by $4,000 in 2010. This incredibly powerful workstation was purpose built to handle the 200-600 images I use to construct the 3 or 4 foot high by 8, 12, or 24 foot wide panoramas. Previous Imagine Fund awards made possible the first two creative accomplishments above, and have opened the doors for upcoming solo exhibitions in Texas and Maryland, as well as other opportunities in Virginia, Michigan, and Montreal, Canada. This proposal would enable me to complete these exhibitions and build exponentially upon the progress I've made these past two years. Imagine Funds are helping me establish a rhythm of productive research to balance my teaching, advising, leadership and service before tenure review in 2012.

Proposed Budget

Proposed budget for color calibrated double widescreen canvas, optimized for panorama production: I am asking for your support to fund side by side LCD computer displays that will allow me to work efficiently while better visualizing the scale and sweep of upcoming projects including a 60' wide ocean panorama I am eager to share with the world.

1. $2,300-NEC 30" Widescreen LCD Monitor: professional high definition display, pivoting function for pans, and energy savings.

2. $100-SpectraView2 Color Calibration Solution: for accurate, consistent, and repeatable color performance screen to printer.

3. $2,300-2nd NEC 30" Widescreen LCD Monitor: 2nd workspace window for full view and efficient construction of panoramas.

4. $200-2 Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapters: connect LCD monitors to existing Apple MacPro computer.

5. $230-UPS Ground Shipping and Insurance-cheapest option for getting these large and precious displays safely to UMD.

Total Cost: $5,130

Drawn from these funding sources:
Imagine Grant Funds: $5,000
Professional Development Funds: $130

Additional Resources (List and details)

Start-up, Faculty Development, and Personal Funds (salary)

Project Time Frame

Additional funding may be requested for future phases of this project.

Project Time Frame Detail

Thanks to Imagine Funds I've begun a body of work suitable for national and international exhibition. If this proposal is funded my productivity would be radically enhanced, imagination and production would be more closely linked, and my panoramas would be more faithfully rendered. Art and Design research at the University of Minnesota would advance, teaching would be strengthened, and service be more inspired. This, in turn, would significantly improve my chances of passing tenure review in one and a half years.

This year's funds will be sufficient to complete this phase of this project and its goals, but additional funding may be requested for wider dissemination in the future (additional printing, exhibition fees, and travel for installations).

Thank you for your time, your review participation, and especially your consideration of my request. I am eager to see these immersive experiences of the beautiful and sublime more fully realized.

Facilitating Political Empowerment of Women in Haryana

Pareena Lawrence, Department of Social Science, University of Minnesota Morris

Goals and Context

The goal of this project is to use women’s life stories and experiences that were collected in 2009-10, to help them devise strategies and develop a curriculum that will help create a more actualized political identity for women in local governance. This curriculum will be developed together with the women leaders who have participated in phase 1-2 of this project. The first workshop based on this jointly developed curriculum will be conducted in summer of 2011 for newly elected women leaders.

The Government of India instituted reservation for women in 1992 to increase their political participation and include their voices in local governance . Despite their intentions and the desires of elected women Sarpanchs (village council heads) to participate, many in the state of Haryana have been rendered ineffective, beset by cultural and social obstacles that impede their ability to execute their responsibilities. In the bordering state of Himachal, women Sarpanchs have had greater success transcending the socio-cultural barriers.

Working in conjunction with women Sarpanchs, this project will help prepare a new generation of women leaders, so that together we can better address the obstacles they face with concrete strategies for actualizing their political identities.

Notable Recent Accomplishments

With Maria Brun, 2010, “NGOs and HIV/AIDS Advocacy in India: Identifying the Challenges.” Forthcoming in the April 2011 issue of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies.

With S. Dalmia, 2010, "Dowry Inflation in India: An Examination of the Evidence for and against it." Forthcoming in International Journal of Business and Economics.

With S. Nezhad, 2009, “Accountability, Transparency, and Government Co-option: A Case Study of Four NGOs.” International NGO Journal Vol. 4 (3), pp.076–083, March 2009, Academic Journals.

With S. Dalmia, 2009, " Trends and Patterns in Dowry Transactions: Evidence from North and South India.” Ch. 6 in the book, Dowry: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice edited by T. Bradley, E. Tomalin and M. Subramaniam. September 2009, Zed/Women Unlimited.

With M. Mancini, 2008. "La Toma De Decisiones de Los Hogares en Venezuela / Household Decision-Making in Venezuela." Revista de Economia Institucional, Vol. 10, Number 18, Primer Semestre, pp. 213-239, Universidad Externado de Colombia.

Keywords

identity, power, gender, empowerment, India

Use of Previous Imagine Fund Awards

The previously awarded Imagine Fund (2010) supplemented by two other grants were used to conduct phase 1 and 2 of the project that included the collection of life histories and focus group discussions with women leaders in Himachal Pradesh and Haryana in northern India in Winter 2009 and Summer 2010. This work was supported by District officials in the state of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh who provided transportation for the women Sarpanchs and helped arrange and facilitate the focus group meetings.

Proposed Budget

Item: Projected Cost
TRAVEL
1. Roundtrip from Morris to and from MSP airport: $160
2. Hotel and park and fly: $140
3. Roundtrip airfare from Minneapolis, Minnesota to New Delhi, India: $1,700
4. Per diem (lodging and food): $2,250
  ($75/day for 30 days)
5. Domestic Travel in India: $1,000
6. Workshop related expenses
 (supplies, food, personnel, and other incidentals): $1,000
TOTAL: $6,250

Additional Resources (List and details)

Faculty Development Funds

Project Time Frame

Additional funding may be requested for future phases of this project.

Project Time Frame Detail

This research project is requesting funds to complete the 3rd phase of this project. I plan on traveling to India in summer 2011 to help finish the development of the curriculum with input from the women leaders who participated in phase 1 and 2 of the project. This jointly developed curriculum will then be used for a workshop for newly elected women leaders (elections held in July 2010) in Haryana in summer 2011.

Phases 1 and 2 have been completed with curriculum development underway.

Phase 1 and 2 (Dec 2009 – Spring 2011)

• recruit and train two research assistants (completed)
• collect life histories of women in Haryana (completed)
• conduct focus groups discussions with women Sarpanchs from Himachal Pradesh to discuss Haryana life histories (completed).
• analyze the life histories and focus group transcripts to develop curriculum for an educational workshop (ongoing).

Phase 3 (summer 2011)

• refine the curriculum and action plan with Himachal Pradesh Sarpanchs to prepare for the first workshop in Summer 2011.
• compile the life histories, focus group discussions, the curriculum developed, and the workshop experiences, including our reflections of this project into a single book volume.