Established
as an organized research unit in 1969, the UCLA
Ralph J.
Bunche Center
for African American Studies has a primary commitment to undertake and
sponsor research which aims to enhance our understanding of the history,
lifestyles, material conditions, and socio-cultural systems of women and
men of African descent in the Americas, and in the diaspora.
The
research program is at the core of the work of the organized research unit
(ORU) that is the Ralph
J. Bunche
Center for African
American Studies at UCLA. The program’s mandate is to attract top research talent, sponsor innovative
inquiry, disseminate a large volume of relevant, quality research, and
ensure a visible contribution by the Center in contemporary and
evolving intellectual
discourses about the past, present and future condition of the African diaspora.
The research division
manages the research infrastructure of the Center by supervising the grant
and fellowship competitions, maintaining an environment conducive to
productive research at the Center, and constantly exploring new
opportunities for research support internally at UCLA and externally at
foundations and other national and international sources. The division is
also a source of intelligence for the Center on contemporary debates and
directions in research about African-Americans and the African diaspora in general. It is also the research division
that develops the themes and lists of participants for scholarly symposia
and other events sponsored by the Center.
Research at the
Center is governed by an interdisciplinary ethic. Most research projects
are in the traditional Social Sciences and Humanities (e.g. Sociology,
Political Science, Law, and History). However, the Center is eager to
explore and support all kinds of interdisciplinary research that will
provide new and useful ways of understanding the psychological, physical
and social dimensions of the black experience in the United States
and abroad. Major research projects on the arts, journalism and the health
of blacks have been, and will continue to be, sponsored.
Research conducted by
Center academic staff and by faculty, students and other scholars supported
by the Center covers the global reach of the African diaspora.
However, the Center realizes its responsibility to pay particular attention
to California and Los Angeles in particular.
The Center has
established a research tradition of distinction, supporting and producing
the highest quality research on a number of issues. Research to date has
been multi-disciplinary in scope, spanning the humanities, social sciences,
fine arts and several professional schools at the University
of California, Los Angeles.
In collaboration with
the CAAS Publications Unit, several research products have been converted
into published works, while research findings are disseminated via
information placed on the Center’s website and through UCLA’s Department of External Affairs.
During the academic
year, the Center sponsors a number of events to disseminate research and
foster discussion of topics of interest to students and faculty.
Funding
Funding through
extramural sources has enabled the Center to conduct a number of in-house
research studies carried out by Bunche Center-affiliated faculty,
postdoctoral fellows and other academic staff.
The Bunche Center has
received funding from a combination of private and federal agencies such
as: the Ford Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation,
the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, the Haynes Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation,
and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and Forestry Service.
The Bunche Center
has catalogued a list scholarly products from
center-sponsored research, among which are several highly acclaimed
published books. Included among these is Black Wealth, White Wealth: A
New Perspective on Racial Inequality, by Dr. Melvin Oliver and Thomas
Shapiro. This book was awarded the American Sociological
Association’s Distinguished Scholarship Award, and the C. Wright
Mills Award.
http://www.bunche.ucla.edu/research/research_assoc_prog.html
Institute of American Cultures
The Bunche
Center also sponsors
a competitive research award program under the auspices of the Institute
for American Cultures (IAC), for faculty, research staff, and students
who wish to conduct studies relevant to African American studies. The IAC
program, an administrative body comprised of UCLA’s
four ethnic studies centers was established in 1986. Since then Bunche Center
has awarded over 140 grants to faculty and student through IAC funding.
Disciplines and departments represented have included African American
Studies, Anthropology, Dance, Economics, English, Folklore, Geography,
History, Law, Library Science, Music, Political Science, Psychiatry,
Psychology, Public Health, Public Policy, Social Welfare, Sociology,
Spanish Literature, Theater, Film and Television, Urban Planning, and Women’s
Studies.
