Community as Intellectual Space:
Symposium

June 17-19, 2005

Puerto Rican Cultural Center

2739-41 W. Division Street
Chicago, IL

Presented by:

Puerto Rican Cultural Center
http://www.prcc-chgo.org

Community Informatics Initiative
http://ilabs.inquiry.uiuc.edu/ilab/cii
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
http://www.lis.uiuc.edu

For further information, contact Alejandro Molina (alejandro@prcc-chgo.org) or Ann Bishop (abishop@uiuc.edu) and see http://www.conferences.uiuc.edu/CIS

Registration will be limited to 40 people - registration info coming soon to the symposium website at http://www.conferences.uiuc.edu/CIS

Communities as Intellectual Space:
Symposium Overview

Studies in community are moving from deficit- to asset-based approaches, with an emphasis on how communities conduct inquiry to investigate and take action on their realities. Such approaches seek to build upon the unique capabilities, history, culture, and lived experiences in local settings, with the understanding that problems must be articulated, and solutions made workable, within the lived experience of actual communities. The concept of “community as intellectual space” is based on the premise that if individuals are to understand and create solutions for problems in complex systems, they need opportunities to engage with challenging problems, to learn through participative investigations, to have supportive, situated experiences, to articulate their ideas to others, and to make use of a variety of resources in multiple media.

Paseo Boricua provides one of the world’s leading examples of melding collaborative action and research across university and community settings. A mile-long section of Division Street in Chicago\\\\\\\'s Humboldt Park area, it is a vibrant neighborhood characterized by strong, multi-generational, multi-institutional community activism, where about 70% of residents are of Latino origin, and 30% of families are living below the federally defined poverty level.

The Puerto Rican Cultural Center (http://www.prcc-chgo.org) has served as an institutional anchor in Paseo Boricua for thirty years, galvanizing neighborhood residents around issues such as poverty, gang violence, AIDS, destruction of cultural identity, lack of educational resources, and racism.

Organizations affiliated with the PRCC include the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School (PACHS), an alternative school that pursues a critical pedagogy while providing a safe place for; the Centro Infantil pre-school; the Family Learning Center, which grants high school diplomas to young women while providing daycare for their children; Vida/SIDA (an AIDS/HIV education center); Batey Urbano Café Teatro, which provides Latino youth with an outlet for expression and community action; the Division Street Business Development Association, a community-based economic development nonprofit; and the National Boricua Human Rights Network.

With this symposium, we invite students, faculty, researchers and others interested in community research and action to participate in the life of Paseo Boricua, gaining first-hand experience with community as intellectual space. Symposium participants will attend panels and workshops that highlight the intellectual work of communities like Paseo Boricua, in addition to engaging in local activities—including youth performances at Batey Urbano, community-curated art and culture exhibits, and the Puerto Rican People’s Parade.