Trading in Cultural Memory
A Study of Call and Response as the primary element of equitable community design.
Sipp Culture is one of 11 organizations to be chosen to participate in the research-focused component of The Wallace Foundation’s ongoing arts initiative focused on arts organizations founded by, with, and for communities of color.
Sipp Culture’s project is part of Wallace’s Field Studies program, in which arts service organizations committed to advancing communities of color collaborate with researchers on studies designed to bring depth, breadth, and perspective to the nature of the ecosystem of nonprofit arts organizations of color and their communities.
Health disparity is a major detriment to the overall wellness of Black communities.
Studies have shown that Black people are highly susceptible to being diagnosed with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and that Black children have a 500% higher death rate from asthma compared with White children.
Compounded issues such as environmental racism, food insecurity’s effect on quality nutrition, and Black women’s reproductive health create dismal prospects for health outcomes for entire communities in both rural and urban settings.
The traumatic legacies of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the subsequent apartheid after its end, and the contemporary institutional subjugation found in mass incarceration all contribute to the continuum of both physical and mental health disparities for Black people.
It should however always be noted that there has never been a time when Black people and communities have not maintained an intervention or response to health disparities. These interventions and responses span a multitude of activity and critical theoretical interrogation that has sought to shift the trajectory of social determinants of health, despite racism and active medical sabotage.
Our research project will seek to answer the paramount question: What is the role of artists as health workers and trainers using the call-and-response methodology in the context of Utica, Mississippi?
This question will guide inquiry around the cultural practices that have sustained and innovatively designed wellness in Black communities. The project is focused on Utica, Mississippi, in Hinds County, where the health outcomes for this rural town with a Black population of over 60% mirror those found in larger metropolitan areas, such as Jackson, the capital city, which is also in Hinds County. It is also here where cultural memory manifests as an entry point to the long and complex history of Black health activism within the larger state, where the redemptive actions of radical health workers provided care for civil rights organizers.
Or specific remembrance of Black women as more than caregivers, but producers of knowledge around health and wellness who represent a lineage of lessons learned from their mothers and grandmothers. This history dates back to the days of enslavement and provides a perspective that positions Black women as active participants in influencing wellness in Black communities.
We can also draw upon broader examples of Black health activism that have contemporary ramifications in highlighting broad disparities but addressing them with targeted and effective action. For example, the work of the Black Panther Party in addressing nutrition, biomedical inclusion, and advocating for power to address overall public health in Black communities is often left out of the general discourse.
These examples highlight not only the history of Black healthcare activism or the approach to it from within the community, they also provide a pathway to synthesis of the contemporary endeavor and privilege the expectations and demands with a nod to futurity that is ever present.
We are partnering with researchers at RISE Research & Evaluation and the Center for Africana Studies at Indiana University Indianapolis to explore how artists can serve as, and also support, community health workers to enhance the health and wellness of the rural Black community of Utica. Using qualitative and community-based participatory research approaches, the team will collect and analyze oral histories of fellow Utica residents to develop culturally responsive and arts-centered health worker training approaches.
Meet the Research Team
Carlton Turner, co-founder and co-director of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production is the organizational lead for this project.
Carlton is a recent Robert Wood Johnson Interdisciplinary Research Fellow and has served as a Creative Placemaking Fellow at Arizona State University’s Creative Placemaking Institute at the Herberger School of Arts and Architecture. The work of the MCCP is rooted in history, culture, and food as determinants of safe and thriving communities. The work is grounded in story, imagination, and growth as key indicators of community vitality.
Dr. Tenah Hunt, RISE Research & Evaluation
Dr. Hunt identifies as a Black woman, evaluator, and researcher who is committed to partnering with others to disrupt and dismantle systems of oppression toward more just and liberated futures for all. She does this by unlearning aspects of white supremacy and capitalist culture in her evaluation and research practice, and instead centers collectivism, cultural knowledge, healing, and love. As a Senior Research Associate at RISE with over 15 years of research experience, Tenah prioritizes critical, strengths-based, and culturally responsive and equitable evaluation approaches. Drawing on her multidisciplinary training, Tenah’s projects are often at the intersection of wellness, community-based social services, and education. Tenah earned her Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and holds a Master’s in Public Health with an emphasis on Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan.
Julie Kendig, RISE Research & Evaluation
Julie Kendig has been a cultural worker since 2001 and has served in a multitude of positions ranging from teaching artist, arts administrator, grant writer, professional development trainer and researcher. In her current role as the Director of Inquiry at RISE Research & Evaluation, Julie’s work is rooted in equity, and she designs studies for arts and culture settings working as a lead analyst. She has 14 years’ experience in mixed-methods research and evaluation, has presented at national and international conferences, and is an author on eight peer-reviewed studies as well as several government reports. Julie is an Indigenous descendant of the Western Band of Cherokee who uses critical theory, relational axiology and decolonizing methods in her research work.
Dr. Leslie Etienne, founding director of the Center for Africana Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Dr. Etienne helps to focus this work through a Black / Africana Studies lens, providing the cultural grounding to contextualizes this research within a larger African diasporic frame. Dr. Etienne brings a team of scholars and students from the Center to support community engagement, data collection activities, data analysis, and research deliverables.
Dr. Leslie Etienne is a clinical associate professor of Africana studies and director of the Africana Studies Program at IU Indianapolis.
He attended Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas, and later served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guyana, South America. He received his master’s in international affairs and development from Clark College in Atlanta, his MPA from Troy University and his Ph.D. in leadership and organizational change from Antioch University.
Dr. Eric Kyere, Center for Africana Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Dr. Kyere’s work focuses in on how inequities are reproduced through the persistence of racism and its resulting contributions to educational, health, and mental health disparities that affect the overall well being of persons of African descent and culturally and racially innovative ways to support the education and health of the youth of African descent, while mitigating the effects of racism.
Dr. Elizabeth Nelson, Center for Africana Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Dr. Nelson’s work centers on examining medical racism and Black health activism from interdisciplinary perspectives, as in her course Survive | Breathe | Thrive: Black Health and the Humanities.
Dr. Cleveland Hayes
Dr. Cleveland Hayes is the Associate Dean, Academic Affairs and professor of Education Foundations in the Urban Teacher Education Department at the School of Education at Indiana University-Indianapolis. Dr. Hayes teaches elementary foundations of education, elementary science methods, Critical Race Theory and qualitative research methods. Dr. Hayes considers himself an interdisciplinary researcher. His research interests include the use of Critical Race Theory in Education, Historical and Contemporary Issues in Black Education to include the school to prison pipeline, Teaching and Learning in the Latino Community, Whiteness and the Intersections of Sexuality and Race. Dr. Hayes is an active member of the American Education Research Association (AERA) at the Division Level, SIG level and committee level. He is currently the Division G, Social Context of Education Vice President.
Mariah Jameson
Mariah Jameson is a community activist, scholar, and mother of two. She has attributed her love for all things social justice to her work in the community and advocating for foster youth. Although 13 years of her childhood were spent in the foster care system, Mariah has never allowed her past to dictate her future. Mariah Jameson is a first-generation college graduate and earned her B.S. in Social Work in May 2022 from Clark Atlanta University and is currently completing her master’s degree in social work.
Dr. Lasana Kazembe
Dr. Kazembe is an Emmy-nominated poet, educator, and critical Black scholar whose work examines culture, race, history, the arts, and the social context of education. Dr. Kazembe’s research, teaching, and scholar-activism comprise a philopraxis that explores the rich and sentient ‘lost-found’ sacred epistemologies (i.e., history, expressive forms, imaginaries, folklore, futurities) of Africana peoples and situates them as sites of memory, critical pedagogy, cultural production, and social action. A major aspect of his work examines the history, political thrusts, aesthetic foundations, and audiopolitics of 20th century Global Black Arts Movements. Dr. Kazembe serves as an Associate Professor in the IU Indianapolis School of Education, and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the IU Indianapolis Africana Studies Program. He is an inaugural Research Fellow with the IU Indianapolis Arts & Humanities Institute, and serves on the Center for Africana Studies and Culture Executive Advisory Committee. Dr. Kazembe also served as inaugural Artist-in-Residence for The Cabaret (a performing arts venue in Indianapolis, IN). His newest project is, Paul Robeson: Man of the People, a jazz poetry opera and creative meditation that explores the life, activism, and artistic legacy of Mr. Paul Robeson.
The Technical Working Group
The Technical Working Group (TWG) for this project seeks to strengthen our knowledge in the areas of community health workers training and development, call and response as African centered artistic methodology.
Dr. Cristal Truscott scholarly research investigates and excavates oral traditions, cultural knowledge and community practices as performance methodology for use by artists/practitioners, educators, community-invested programs and arts organizations seeking to offer inclusive, dynamic artist training, curricula and/or programming.
Dr. Lasana Kazembe’s research is fueled and informed by a philo-praxis that examines cultural memory (Sankofa) and Black Aesthetic Critical Literacy (Sia). A Poet, Spoken Word Artist, and Teaching Artist, Dr. Kazembe has performed at colleges and universities throughout the U.S., and venues in Canada, and Africa. As a Teaching Artist, he has developed and facilitated creative writing programs within youth detention centers, prisons, community centers, K12 schools, and other learning spaces.
Dr. James L. Coleman, Jr., a native of Camden, South Carolina, received his Bachelor of Science degree from Winthrop College, Rock Hill, South Carolina; Master of Science degree from the University of Central Arkansas, Conway, Arkansas; and Doctor of Education degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee. He is currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of G.A. Carmichael Family Health Center, Inc. in Canton, Mississippi. Dr. Coleman comes with over 18 years of experience and knowledge in the area of Public Health and Health Care Management, and has served as the former Chief Executive Officer with the Margaret J. Weston Community Health Centers, another FQHC, located in Aiken County.
daniel johnson is a multi-disciplinary artist, public historian, and dad working in community in the Southeast. Focused on agency, equity, and the formation of agreements, johnson’s artistic process is rooted in the unfolding, intersecting stories of everyday life. Through deep listening, reflections on belonging, and facilitated community storytelling, johnson works with groups of people to harness their unique cultural expressions in a co-design process to disrupt power dynamics and realize shared intentions. johnson believes that the communicative, connective power of culture provides the most powerful tools for forming affinity and focusing energies. toward practical impacts for everyday life. His work has been featured by PolicyLink, Center for the Future of Museums, Georgetown University’s Gnovis journal, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Community Development Innovation Review, and Mississippi Today.
“The Wallace Foundation is honored to support these organizations to ask and answer questions that are meaningful to them, and to other arts organizations in the sector. We believe collectively these studies, along with others we are funding, will expand public and private community stakeholders’ understanding of the vital role these organizations play for their constituencies.”
– Bronwyn Bevan, Vice President of Research at The Wallace Foundation.
Wallace awarded a total of $2.8 million to the 11 organizations participating to conduct their own research on issues relevant to the well-being of arts organizations of color and the communities they serve, including: Camden FireWorks, Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, Critical Ecology Lab, Kyoung’s Pacific Beat, Latinx Theatre Commons, Media and Data Equity Lab at Northwestern University, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, Silk Road Rising, and Support Oakland Artists.
