Participation Type
Workshop
Session Title
Session 6.07 Outmigration
Presentation #1 Title
Community-based Research and Web Design for Appalachian Advocacy Organizations
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Decades after the largest migrations from Appalachia into urban centers across the Midwest, Appalachian migrants and their descendants still face enduring stereotypes of mountain culture that have consequences for the organizations that serve these communities. This workshop provides participants with strategies for conducting community-based research within Appalachian advocacy organizations, focusing specifically on the challenges of supporting Appalachians beyond the mountains. Workshop leaders will draw on work done with the Urban Appalachian Council (UAC), an advocacy organization that offers research meetings, arts events, and community resources to improve regional attitudes and increase the quality of life for Appalachian migrants and their descendents in Cincinnati, Ohio. Workshop Leader #1 will share the research methodology she implemented in a year-long ethnographic study of Appalachian identity at the UAC. She will guide workshop participants in developing research questions and methods that ask how research can generate respect for groups offered little to no respect. Workshop Leader #2 will combine methodologies of user- and community-centered design with methods of testing web usability and implementing content strategy, arguing that research and activism should be driven by the needs and rhythms of communities and their advocacy organizations. He will then walk participants through a usability test process conducted for the website of the UAC, demonstrating the ways in which content strategy and usability studies can be powerful tools to help communities analyze and perform their own rhetorical practices. Participants will leave the session with strategies for conducting ethical and reciprocal community-based research.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Kathryn Trauth Taylor is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Purdue University. Her work on Appalachian public rhetorics and community engagement has appeared in Enculturation, PLUCK!, Trans-Scripts, and Reflections.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Jonathan Bradshaw is a PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric at Miami University of Ohio, studying the intersections of community rhetorics and website design.
Community-based Research and Web Design for Appalachian Advocacy Organizations
Harris Hall 303
Decades after the largest migrations from Appalachia into urban centers across the Midwest, Appalachian migrants and their descendants still face enduring stereotypes of mountain culture that have consequences for the organizations that serve these communities. This workshop provides participants with strategies for conducting community-based research within Appalachian advocacy organizations, focusing specifically on the challenges of supporting Appalachians beyond the mountains. Workshop leaders will draw on work done with the Urban Appalachian Council (UAC), an advocacy organization that offers research meetings, arts events, and community resources to improve regional attitudes and increase the quality of life for Appalachian migrants and their descendents in Cincinnati, Ohio. Workshop Leader #1 will share the research methodology she implemented in a year-long ethnographic study of Appalachian identity at the UAC. She will guide workshop participants in developing research questions and methods that ask how research can generate respect for groups offered little to no respect. Workshop Leader #2 will combine methodologies of user- and community-centered design with methods of testing web usability and implementing content strategy, arguing that research and activism should be driven by the needs and rhythms of communities and their advocacy organizations. He will then walk participants through a usability test process conducted for the website of the UAC, demonstrating the ways in which content strategy and usability studies can be powerful tools to help communities analyze and perform their own rhetorical practices. Participants will leave the session with strategies for conducting ethical and reciprocal community-based research.
