Institute for Policy and Governance Institute Update: November 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome

New Publications

Accomplishments

Sharon Mastracci

Project Updates

Dr. David Moore Visits Mongolia
People of IPG featuring Dr. Lyusyena Kirakosyan
IPG Faculty featured in VT News
IPG Podcast Series Archive
IPG's New Facebook Page

Five Pieces Worth Reading

Community Change Collaborative (CCC)

Latest Podcasts

Conferences and Events

2023 National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NARR)

Pondering Past Podcast Programs

Ariel Otruba: Using Photovoice to Grapple with Displacement
Frank Dukes: Conflict Resolution Through Facilitative Leadership

Legacy Tidings and Soundings

Pondering Citizenship, Governance, and Deliberation
Democratic Expectations: A Nation of Toddlers?

Featured Opportunities

Virginia Tech Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation hiring

Welcome

Dear friends of VTIPG and CCC,

We are excited to present this monthly update to share recent publications, announcements, and information concerning Institute projects and activities.

A Very Special Guest

VTIPG was honored to host Dr. Ariel Otruba, feminist political geographer and faculty member at Arcadia University in Glenside PA, in early October to provide a lecture to open a traveling photographic exhibition, "Violent Infrastructure: Ecologies of Decay and Displacement" at Newman Library that features thirty photographs by ten internally displaced persons from the Republic of Georgia. Dr. Otruba's study participants, displaced by Georgia's civil war in 1991-1992, lived in deteriorating Soviet-constructed tourist hotels for more than thirty years as they awaited new housing. This exhibit, on view at Newman Library until mid-December, records that experience through their eyes. She also conducted a workshop on the research methodology Photovoice she employed to develop the exhibit, sat for an interview for IPG's Trustees without Borders podcast series, and met with various university officials, undergraduate and graduate students during her visit. The Institute thanks the Center for European Union, Transatlantic, and Trans-European Space Studies and the Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies for partnering with us to host Dr. Otruba. You may view a story concerning her visit here.

Legacy Commentaries

To showcase content from the past, we are featuring podcasts, Tidings, and Soundings from our archive. Those appear below.

A Note from the Editor

If you have information that you think we should include in these updates, please contact Billy Parvatam, VTIPG Communications Coordinator, at pbilly97@vt.edu.

New Publications

Congratulations to members of the Maré (Rio de Janeiro) Research Group who collaborated on an article recently featured by the National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine: Desiree Poets, Cathy Grimes, Max Stephenson, Jr., Neda Moayerian and Molly Todd. (2023). “Care-based community communication, capacity, and agency during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from the Complexo da Maré Favela, Brazil.” World Development Perspectives, 30, 100508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100508

Congratulations to Planning, Governing, and Globalization PhD students Brad Stephens and Yugasha Bakshi who recently had an abstract accepted by the Urban Affairs Association for presentation of a paper at its upcoming International Conference on Urban Affairs, April 24-27, 2024, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City, NY. Their paper is entitled, "Trust: Exploring Why Urban Researchers and Institutions Should Care."

We would also like to congratulate our Non-Resident Research Associate and University of Virginia Assistant Professor, Dr. Vanessa Guerra, on her abstract also being accepted for the 2024 International Conference on Urban Affairs. Her paper is entitled, "From Crisis to Empowerment: The Role of Community-led Solutions Journalism in Maré and Rocinha Favelas Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic." Cathy Grimes of the Graduate School and Max Stephenson, Jr. will co-author the effort.

Accomplishments

Sharon Mastracci

School of Public and International Affairs Professor Dr. Sharon Mastracci was named Chair of the Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP) on November 3. Dr. Mastracci has been teaching for more than 20 years and joined CPAP in the fall of 2022. Her research has addressed emotional labor and public service.

Dr. Mastracci is working with IPG in several areas, including co-mentoring the Institute's resident Postdoctoral Scholar, Dr. Andrea Briceno Mosquera. She also serves on Deputy Director Mary Beth Dunkenberger's doctoral dissertation committee.

Congratulations, Sharon!

Project Updates

Dr. David Moore Visits Mongolia

The Institute for Policy and Governance wishes to express its deep gratitude to the Secretary General of the UN Association of Mongolia, Khishi Enkhbayar, for hosting IPG Associate Director for Strategic Partnerships, Dr. David Moore, for an engaging, productive and enjoyable exchange visit to the UNA and the country of Mongolia during the month of October. Khishi ensured that Dr. Moore experienced the best of Mongolian hospitality, including many high-level visits with university and NGO leaders, multiple opportunities to offer presentations on salient civil society issues with dynamic and interested audiences, and cultural activities that showcased the wonders of the Mongolian nation and people. IPG and Dr. Moore will forever be grateful for her encyclopedic knowledge, numerous connections, and dedication to international collaboration. We look forward to future endeavors together.

People of IPG featuring Dr. Lyusyena Kirakosyan

IPG is pleased to share our latest installment of our Profile Series featuring Senior Non-Resident Research Associate Dr. Lyusyena Kirakosyan, who joined the Institute in 2014. Dr. Kirakosyan discusses her tenure with VTIPG and more in this conversation with Communications Coordinator Billy Parvatam here.

Photo: Dr. Lyusyena Kirakosyan. Photo Credit: Lyusyena Kirakosyan

IPG Faculty featured in VT News

IPG Faculty members Dr. David Moore, Lara Nagle, Mary Beth Dunkenberger, and Postdoctoral Scholar Andrea Briceno Mosquera were featured in the November 7 edition of VT News for their involvement in School of Public and International Affairs Assistant Professor Dr. Theo Lim's National Science Foundation grant project. Dr. Lim is working with a vulnerable Roanoke, Virginia neighborhood to combat the impact of rising temperatures and to promote healing among those affected by past urban planning practices. You may find the article here.

Photo: Dr. Theo Lim. Photo Credit: Theo Lim

IPG Podcast Series Archive

The Institute website now highlights our podcasts! We are very pleased to showcase our 3-podcast series: Trustees Without Borders, Social Science for the Public Good, and the Community Change Journal Podcast. You can explore any or all of these on any platform that streams podcasts. For additional information please click the link below or contact Brad Stephens at bas615@vt.edu.

https://ipg.vt.edu/WhatWeDo/Podcasts.html

Photo: PhD students Amin Farzaneh (left) and Brad Stephens (right) interviewing Dr. Ariel Otruba concerning her research for a Trustees without Borders recording. Photo credit: Billy Parvatam

IPG's New Facebook Page

VTIPG has a new Facebook page! Please follow us to receive our latest news and updates.

Five Pieces Worth Reading

VTIPG Communications Coordinator Billy Parvatam shares five articles each week that address timely and meaningful concerns that address the state of democracy and civil society in the Institute’s Five Pieces Worth Reading series. Five Pieces treated the following concerns during September and October.

October 27: These articles focused on Mike Johnson's election as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, how the strategic manipulation of U.S. elections has become more prevalent, the Supreme Court's decision not to intervene in Louisiana's decision not to draw a second Black-majority district, environmental and transparency concerns related to a proposed small nuclear reactor in Wise County, VA. and how a major power plant in Uruguay is responding to that industry's high level of water pollution and consumption amidst a major drought.

October 20: These pieces addressed Jim Jordan's Speakership bid and suggested it epitomized what is wrong with the Republican Party, President Biden's visit to Israel, the legal settlement between the Biden administration and families separated at the border under the Trump administration, the Polish national elections, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's climate policy.

October 13: These articles highlighted Heather Cox Richardson's reflections on the state of American democracy, how the extended intraparty Republican conflict concerning whom to elect as Speaker of the House of Representatives could significantly delay aid to Israel to fight Hamas, how an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza could make the Israeli-Hamas war even more devastating for civilians, a better-than-expected jobs report for September, and the drought in the Brazilian Amazon.

September 22: These pieces described Roanoke and Lynchburg's new efforts to address mental and behavioral health challenges, why some economists believe the U.S. economy may enter a recession soon, how the Republican Party has become so threatening to American democracy, the worrisomely low levels of sea ice in Antarctica, and former Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico's campaign against continued aid to Ukraine by that nation.

Community Change Collaborative (CCC)

Latest Podcasts

The Institute has released the first two episodes of its new "Social Science for Public Good" series, which feature leading scholars discussing their research and its relevance for understanding pressing governance and policy concerns. These new conversations concern Power, and our guests were Drs. Michael Hardt (Professor of Literature at Duke University) and Guido Möllering (Director of the Reinhard Mohn Institute of Management at Witten/Herdecke University, Germany). Planning, Governance, and Globalization PhD students Brad Stephens (also of VTIPG) and Yugasha Bakshi, co-host the series. You may read more about this initiative and access these episodes here.

Conferences and Events

2023 National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NARR)

Monica Flora, Assistant Clinical Director for ARTS at Piedmont Community Services, and IPG faculty members Lara Nagle and Laura York presented a talk about the PEARL recovery housing program for pregnant and postpartum women at the 2023 National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NARR) conference in Dearborn, MI, on October 10. The theme of this year's conference was "Recovery Out Loud," to showcase recovery stories and successes. The team's presentation included key findings from a photovoice research project that allowed PEARL residents to share their recovery stories with a national audience.

Pictured in photo, from left to right: Lara Nagle, Monica Flora, Laura York

Pondering Past Podcast Programs

Trustees Without Borders (TWB) is a podcast series produced by the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance (IPG) and the Community Change Collaborative (CCC). TWB features leading practitioners, thinkers, and designers working to reframe and strengthen communities, doing so without borders or limits on their ideas and aspirations, without borders on what they think is possible, without borders concerning with whom they will work and without constraints on their dreams for a more just and inclusive community.

From this rich repository, we highlight two podcast episodes that are thematically related and present a particular concept germane to community change praxis with complexity and depth. The following conversations feature Dr. Ariel Otruba and Dr. Frank Dukes.

Ariel Otruba: Using Photovoice to Grapple with Displacement

In this episode, Dr. Ariel Otruba shares her research on peacebuilding, borders, and the politics of displacement. She discusses the photovoice exhibit "Violent Infrastructure: Ecologies of Decay & Displacement," (now at Newman Library until mid-December) which captures the feelings and experiences of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the Republic of Georgia. She also comments on the state of politics in Georgia and the issue of displacement more broadly. Lastly, Dr. Otruba delves into her approach to qualitative research.

Ariel Otruba, PhD is a feminist political geographer and conflict resolution practitioner, who specializes in the study of violent geographies in the South Caucasus. Her research interests include critical geopolitics, border and migration studies, and post-humanist approaches to political ecology. She currently teaches in the International Peace and Conflict Resolution program at Arcadia University. Prior to this role, she was the InFocus War and Peace Scholar-in-Residence at Moravian University. Her publications have appeared in several edited volumes and Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.

Dr. Otruba's visit and accompanying "Violent Infrastructure" exhibition was made possible with the support of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance, the Center for European Union, Transatlantic, and Trans-European Space Studies, the Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies, and the Community Change Collaborative in partnership with Newman Library.

Listen here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trustees-without-borders/episodes/Ariel-Otruba-Using-Photovoice-To-Grapple-With-Displacement-e2av05a

Frank Dukes: Conflict Resolution Through Facilitative Leadership

In this episode, Frank Dukes breaks down how to build processes to resolve conflicts through facilitative leadership. He shares his belief that all stakeholders and citizens can take on leadership roles in the search for shared goals and be involved in finding solutions. While recognizing some of the limitations of collaborative leadership, he also discusses how building robust processes can help bring together people who might never collaborate to build robust solutions.

Frank Dukes, Ph.D. is a mediator and facilitator with the Institute for Engagement & Negotiation (IEN) at the University of Virginia (UVA). He has mediated numerous collaborative change processes, including negotiations involving communities severely affected by the 2014 Duke Energy coal ash release. He founded University & Community Action for Racial Equity (UCARE) at UVA to address its legacy of slavery and white supremacy, leads IEN’s “Transforming Community Spaces” project helping communities transform problematic spaces, led community engagement as a member of the design team for UVA’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, and was a member of Charlottesville’s Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces determining the fate of the City’s Confederate statues. He was awarded the 2016 John C. Casteen III Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Award for the University of Virginia, and the 2012 Sharon M. Pickett Award for Environmental Conflict Resolution.

Listen here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trustees-without-borders/episodes/Frank-Dukes-Conflict-Resolution-Through-Facilitative-Leadership-e1sbqgg

Legacy Tidings and Soundings

Here are a previously published Tidings (Dec. 31, 2009) and Soundings (Jan. 16, 2010) by Dr. Max Stephenson, Jr.

Pondering Citizenship, Governance and Deliberation

My last Tidings column reflected on certain implications of the enduring values that separate Americans in our ongoing political dialogue. This piece explores several challenges that confront the American public as those citizens collectively address the responsibility of sorting through the portent of such foundational claims for democratic decision-making. I make no pretense to comprehensiveness but the issues treated here merit thoughtful consideration even though they do not constitute all possible relevant factors.

One of the reasons democratic forms of governance found few partisans among political theorists and philosophers until the modern period was that democratic experiments historically were subject to two oft-evidenced forms of tyranny. Either single individuals bent on power could corrupt democratic processes and gain control to rule by fiat or, worse in its way, a majority could deprive a minority or minority groups within a nation of their freedom, rights or standing on the basis of whatever characteristic gained the majority’s support (tribe, race, ethnicity, nationality have all been used). Avoidance of these twin possibilities seemed unlikely to many thinkers who did not trust that a majority would forbear blame-casting and scapegoating or so control its natural emotional inclinations as to avoid being misled by talented manipulators and demagogues who might engage in such efforts. ...

Democratic Expectations: A Nation of Toddlers?

I listened to an interview today with National Public Radio’s Senior Political Editor on that network’s Sunday Morning version of Weekend Edition and was more than a little dumbstruck. The central theme of the questions and answers was that President Obama has yet to accomplish much in his tenure. The editor noted the health care bill has not yet passed and the President’s foreign policy initiatives have not yet transformed Iran, North Korea or China. And, he has not ended the conflicts into which his predecessor entered the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, unemployment remains high and economic uncertainty a staple for all Americans. For these reasons, the editor opined, Obama remains more a tantalizing possibility as a leader rather than a leader. ...

Featured Opportunities

Virginia Tech Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation Hiring

The Virginia Tech Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation is hiring a Postdoctoral Associate. This research position is a key component of new USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) cooperative agreement for the titled project, "Increasing Access to Wholesale Markets: Meeting Technical Assistance Needs of Black, Hispanic, and Tribal Producers.” The Postdoctoral Research Associate will take leadership to organize and conduct research to address the project’s aim in partnership with USDA-AMS and the Food Systems Action Lab at Illinois Tech: employ a mixed methods study to understand the distinct needs of Black, Hispanic, and Tribal producers around access and entry into wholesale markets. Specifically, the position includes taking research leadership to a) understand and document the distinct needs of Black, Hispanic, and Tribal producers in the southern United States through a series of interviews and focus groups with Black, Hispanic, and Tribal educators, thought leaders, producer networks, Black- and Hispanic- led institutions, and directly with producers; b) conduct a literature review and secondary data scan to reinforce the understanding of Black, Hispanic, and Tribal producers’ needs and market access; and c) compile, evaluate, and synthesize all data to develop a core competencies recommendations report provided to USDA and Regional Food Business Centers to support their development of technical assistance for Black, Hispanic, and Tribal producers.

To learn more about the position and to apply, please see here.

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