New round of grants for global research

Essay

New round of grants for global research

Gilman Scholarships

In spring 2021, Center for Global Inquiry + Innovation in the Office of the Vice Provost for Global Affairs announced a new round of grants to support global research for faculty. The grants included smaller ones for individual research (up to $15,000), as well as a second round of the G-pod for larger collaborative work (up to $100,000).

The awarded projects ranged from China’s Belt Road initiative to Mayan oral literature; from Sound Justice lab to Global Media Cultures Collaboratory.

“Colleagues are getting ready to restart their research after the long COVID gap and are looking towards fall. A Spring round of grants will help keep the momentum going for the faculty on global research and programming for the coming academic year,” said Brian Owensby, Director of CGII.

Some of the smaller projects awarded during the Spring round are:

  • Creative Urban Arenas: A Digital Repository | Nicole Bonino
  • Small Worlds, Large Worlds: Constructing Place in a Rural Frontier of Ancient Athens | Anastasia Dakouri-Hild
  • A Worldview in Words: Curation of the Mopan Mayan Oral Literature Archive | Eve Danziger
  • Creation of Authentic Material to Teach About Diversity in the Italian Society | Stella Mattioli
  • Assessment of China's Belt and Road Initiative | M. Tayyab Safdar and Dorothy Wong

In addition to center grants, CGII also offered G-Pod in Spring to two new projects. G-Pods are larger grants often given in the fall semester but were awarded in the Spring this year to jump-start global research for faculty. The awarded projects are:

Sound Justice Lab | Nomi Dave: This multi-disciplinary, cross-school project (Music, Law, Anthropology) will form a collective of faculty and students to investigate the role of sound and non-textual experience in matters of law and justice in the public sphere. “The focus will be on everyday justice to think about how processes and practices of justice-seeking are enacted, actualized, reworked, and represented through sound,” said Dave, associate professor in McIntire Department of Music. 

Initial projects involve a documentary film titled “Big Mouth,” on the role of defamation claims and silencing as tactics against those who report on sexual assault and misconduct in the Republic of Guinea.  A related project, titled “Amplified Justice” will explore voice and gender justice in Charlottesville and at UVA. The aim is to create the Sound Justice Lab as an umbrella for colleagues whose research interests include the role of aurality and orality in processes of seeking justice.

Global Media Cultures Collaboratory | Aswin Punathambekar and Eli Carter: This interdisciplinary, collaborative project (Media Studies, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese) will seek to understand the cultural implications of globalization and technological change across the Global South. “It will convene faculty and grad students across disciplines, international campuses, and career states to conduct research, teach classes, organize workshops, and hold symposia on three major research topics regarding media in the Global South,” said Punathambekar, associate professor in Media Studies.

The project will (1) galvanize research and publications on issues of media in the Global South, through workshops and symposia, (2) establish a Doctoral Institute on Global Digital Cultures to encourage grad students to explore these issues, (3) create a digital forum on Global Media cultures, and (4) launch J-Term courses in the media cultures of the Global South.  The goal is create the Global Media Cultures Collaboratory as a focus for colleagues whose research intersects with new media and the Global South.