The Project Described:

The Racial Analysis for Transforming Neighborhoods Project ("Project") is funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as part of their Making Connections initiative. For more information on the Annie E. Casey Foundation Making Connections initiative, please go to http://www.aecf.org/initiatives/ntfd/making.htm. The Project will be implemented in nine of the twenty-two Making Connections sites. The nine sites include Baltimore, Camden, Detroit, Hartford, Indianapolis, Oakland, San Antonio, San Diego, and Savannah. The Project will assist the site leaders and the targeted communities' in the implementation of their community and human development strategies of the Making Connections initiative by analyzing racial/ethnic tensions that may exist in the targeted communities and their greater metropolitan areas. The racial/ethnic tensions analysis will focus on identifying the origins and the factors contributing to the maintenance of tensions, and will seek to offer recommendations on managing tensions to incorporate into the existing Making Connections development strategies.

The Proposed Project Period:

June 2001 through the end of December 2002

The Project Goals:

1) To qualify the current nature of race and ethnic relations in eight targeted communities through a participatory monitoring and evaluation approach: (a) identify the communities distinct and cognizable racial/ethnic groups as defined by racial and ethnic tensions; (b) identify the structural processes which influence and contribute to the manifestation of racial and ethnic tensions among the communities; and (c) identify the inter and intragroup dynamics which influence the communities' race and ethnic relations capacity.

2) To quantify the impact of the above identified structural processes and inter and intra group dynamics at the race and poverty intersect.

3) To develop a racial and ethnic tensions management methodology based on a participatory monitoring and evaluation approach, which considers the findings of objectives 1 and 2.

4) To identify conflict resolution specialists to locally implement the methodology to be defined in objective 3.

5) To develop an Internet tool kit to aid communities in transforming racial and ethnic tensions based on the case studies of the eight communities and the corresponding methodology to manage racial and ethnic tensions. The tool kit will include related bibliography on strategies and literature, and directories of support organizations and other resources.

6) To develop a project publication and presentation module.

Contact Information:

For more information, please contact Lindsay Jones (612) 625-6512, jones225@umn.edu at the Institute on Race and Poverty.