GLOBAL

Global Poverty Research Lab (GPRL) uses empirical evidence and interdisciplinary engagement to understand drivers, consequences and solutions to poverty issues and to improve well-being in the developing world.  GPRL supports graduate student and faculty research, providing undergraduate research opportunities, coordinating a seminar series, and assisting with data management.  These initiatives include geographic or sectoral-focused research clusters focused on the collection of long-term panel data to measure the impact of interventions, as well as direct policy engagement support through communications, forming engagement strategies and event planning to translate research findings into interventions and policies.

Beth Redbird’s research focuses on the proposition that boundaries both create inequality by generating rent and alter the relationships within and between bounded groups. Just as occupational licensing alters the very structure of an occupation, Native boundaries, including industry closure resulting from gaming and energy projects, alter the relationship between tribe and state, which is amplified by simple geographic isolation. The study of both generic rent-generating processes like licensure and highly specific closure forms such as those at work in the Native context reveal that these are not simple economic devices, but fundamental institutional forces that perpetuate poverty.

The Puerto Rican Arts Development Initiative was launched in 2017 by founder and outgoing professor and chair of the Department of Performance Studies, Ramon H. Rivera-Servera to help save and revitalize the art community after hurricanes Maria and Irma devastated the island and to help individual artists develop their own work.  The initiative was made possible thanks to support from Northwestern and a $500,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which allowed the Initiative to pair ten artists with mentors to develop and mount new works on the island, even in the midst of a global pandemic.  The initial funds also established artistic residencies at Northwestern and other colleges and universities.  Thanks to a second grant from the Mellon Foundation, the initiative is moving into a second phase designed to help artists sustain their practices and to encourage them to become curatorial platforms that help other artists.