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Research

Collaborative Public Humanities in Action

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Higher Learning Program awarded UNO a $750,000 grant to support a broad public humanities research initiative among three partnering units: the Program in Justice Studies, the Ethel and Herman L. Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies, and the Neighborhood Story Project. Affiliated faculty and staff in Justice Studies are actively engaging in this collaborative effort. Read more about the grant here, and keep an eye on our News & Events page for updates.


Economic Justice Research Lab

Mission

The Economic Justice Research Lab (EJRL) fosters new collaborative community-engaged scholarship by bringing together students, faculty, nonprofit organizations, and grassroots activists to co-create new humanities knowledge and public programming focused on working people, community organizing, and the labor movement in New Orleans and beyond.

  • People

    Staff

    Principal Investigator: Max Krochmal, Ph.D., Professor of History and Director of Justice Studies

    Mellon Postdoctoral Research Associate: Rafael Delgadillo, Ph.D.

    Advisory Board

    Thomas J. Adams, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of South Alabama

    Leah Bailey, Community and Political Organizer, UNITE HERE Local 23

    Sarah Fouts, Ph.D., Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (website)

    Edith Romero, Organizer, Unión Migrante

    Ben Zucker, Co-Founder and Co-Director, Step Up Louisiana

  • Oral History Project

    The lab’s first project seeks to recover and preserve the activist cultures of two broad categories of essential laborers in the city: 1) tourism and hospitality, including hotel, restaurant, and other services such as musicians, cultural workers, and related construction and day laborers that are integral to the city’s economic base in tourism; and 2) healthcare workers. Both groups are making headlines in recent years as their unions have achieved unprecedented victories.

    This project uses oral history and kindred methods to publicly document the history and present of essential workers’ own collective organizing in New Orleans, a city in the crosshairs of climate change and suffering extreme inequities further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our team of academic researchers partners with representatives from local unions, workers’ centers, non-profits, and community-based storytellers and archives to record and preserve new oral history interviews with tourism industry and healthcare workers who have been or are current advocates in the struggle for higher wages, stable employment, fair treatment, and unionization in their industries. Our pool of narrators includes rank and file workers, union staff, and community organizers.

    We seek to learn directly from the rank and file leaders who not only advocated for better conditions on the job but also rallied their co-workers or brought neighbors and other activists into the fight with them. We want to understand the cultures of their workplaces, the solidarities they forged, the visions they expounded, and the successes and failures of their various campaigns, strategies, and tactics. We ask broad, open-ended questions about their childhoods and early lives, their transitions into the workforce, and the ways in which they got involved in collective organizing. Their stories shed light on not only their personal experiences but the broader experiences of the many workers they sought to bring together and represented as union and community organizers.

    This project links leading academic researchers with community partners, both of whom play a central role in directing and executing the project. Our five-member Advisory Board includes allied researchers and representatives from relevant unions and membership-based working-class organizations. Board members work collaboratively with us to identify and recruit interviewees and are invited to join in conducting interviews and interpreting and presenting our findings.

  • End Products

    First, the oral history interviews will be deposited in both a digital and brick-and-mortar repository, the Louisiana and Special Collections of the Earl K. Long Library at the University of New Orleans. These complete videotaped records will be archived for preservation and made available for public use, both in-person on Blu-Ray and via the internet via ScholarWorks@UNO. 

    Second, with the assistance of the members of our Advisory Board (see above), we will also create a digital exhibit or microsite in which we identify key themes and select clips from the interviews in order to write a series of interpretive multimedia mini-essays that will be published online. At the conclusion of the pilot project, in late spring 2026, we will host a public presentation at which we share our findings, engage in conversation with members of the Advisory Board and selected narrators, and unveil the website.


Mellon Collaborative Research Grants

With support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, these grants aim to jumpstart student research projects, recognize faculty mentorship, and encourage meaningful community engagement in the practice of “justice research,” especially at the crucial moments in which students are developing and launching their dissertation projects.

Click here for the call for proposals -- the next round of funding will be in 2026!

  • 2025 Recipients

    Jody Billiot, “Reclaiming the Palmetto Home: Abel’s Vision.” Community Partner: Pointe-Au-Chien Indian Tribe. Advisor: Dr. D. Ryan Gray

    Rebecca Davidsson, “Integrated Navigation Services to End Arrest and Detention: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of a Holistic Pre-Trial Diversion Program in Orleans Parish.” Community Partner: Ubuntu Village NOLA. Advisor: Dr. Steve Mumford

    Monique Legendre, “What We Wish the Decision-Makers Knew About First-Generation Student Success: A Critical Inquiry Centering First-Generation Students as the Solution Holders.” Community Partner: Career Immersion and Leadership Institute (CILI). Advisor: Dr. Chris Broadhurst

    Kim Lewis Williams, “Just Policing in New Orleans: Citizens’ View of the Federal Consent Decree.” Community Partner: New Orleans United Front. Advisor: Dr. Roberto Barrios

    Eric Lincoln, “Values and Ideology in the Artisanal Workplace.” Community Partner: Arts New Orleans. Advisor: Dr. Jeffrey Parker

    Earl Mitchell, Jr., “Maternal Mortality Disparities Among Women in Louisiana: The Role of  Public Policy.” Community Partner: Birthmark Doula Collective. Advisor: Dr. D’Lane Compton

    Edward Noble, “The Effects of East Baton Rouge Secession Districts on Student Performance.” Community Partner: Friends of Public Education. Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Jeffers

  • 2024 Recipients

    Robyn Guillen, “The Future is Female: Stories of Empowerment from Formerly Incarcerated Women in Operation Restoration.” Community Partner: Operation Restoration. Advisor: Dr. Grace Reinke

    Amy Hession, “Centering Student and Family Voices in Special Education Decision-Making.” Community Partner: Homer Plessy Community Schools. Advisor: Dr. Courtney Wait

    Erica Martinez, “Growing Up in Mississippi After the Civil Rights Era: A Black and White Narrative.” Community Partner: Tarik Georgia. Advisor: Dr. Max Krochmal

    Emily Ratner, “‘To Establish Justice:’ Louisiana’s Constitutional Processes in Reconstruction and Today.” Community Partners: Voice of the Experienced (VOTE) and the Plessy and Ferguson Initiative. Advisor: Dr. Molly Mitchell

    Chauncey Reeves, “Health and Wellness Concerns of Residents of St. James Parish in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley.’” Community Partner: RISE St. James. Advisor: Dr. Roberto Barrios

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