Paid Research for Residential Oral Histories

by | Jul 31, 2019

Please read below if you live in Crown Heights and you are interested in participating in an Oral History Project.

My name is Erin Lilli, I’m an Environmental Psychology PhD candidate with the Graduate Center, CUNY and am conducting research for my dissertation project titled, Staying Power: everyday resistance to gentrification and the Black struggle for home and place in Crown Heights. 

Currently, I am preparing to start the qualitative portion of my research which consists of residential oral histories. I am hoping to talk with long-term, West Indian and/or Black residents living in Crown Heights to understand how these residents resist and/or respond to the everyday forces of political economic change and gentrification taking place in their neighborhood. I’m interested in how residents keep their connections to place and sense of home, obtain and maintain footholds in the community, and use everyday forms of resistance in struggles to stay put in their homes amidst gentrification.

Participants in this research would be asked to share an oral history of their housing experiences over the course of a 1-hour interview and will be compensated $50 for taking part in this research.

I have a few eligibility requirements for participating in this research:

  1. You must currently rent or own a home in, or adjacent to, Crown Heights (i.e. consider Crown Heights your home)
  2. You must be 30 years of age or over
  3. You must have lived in/near Crown Heights all or most of your life
  4. You self-identify as any of the following: African-American, West Indian (or other various identities associated with), African, and/or Black

If you are interested in being a part of this research, or know of others who might be, please feel free to contact me, Erin, at elilli@gradcenter.cuny.edu or at 612-666-1162. I’d be happy to tell you more about the work and myself and answer any questions about me, the research, or the eligibility criteria to be a participant.

Additionally, please feel free to forward this information to others who might be interested in reaching out to me.

  I thank you for taking the time to read and consider this request.

Sincerely,

-Erin

 Ph.D. Candidate, Environmental Psychology

The Graduate Center, City University of New York

New York, NY  10016

c: 612-666-1162

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