With the ever-changing social and cultural issues facing our world, the conversation addressing these problems will always continue to shift. The Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE) at Columbia University advances socially and culturally important projects by bringing together multi-disciplinary knowledge and practice. They generate and communicate information using novel research and education methods at the intersection of disciplines. Through their collective conversations, INCITE integrates the strengths of social sciences, humanities, and life and behavioral sciences to effectively promote social change in the U.S. and abroad. 

The issues INCITE pursues are widespread and change over time in order to adapt to relevant issues. Implementing their extensive expertise in oral history and sociology, their collaborations are with partners whose movements and moments will have a widespread impact. Currently, their research initiatives focus on status, difference, innovation, creativity, and temporality. 

Within each unique project, INCITE identifies the dynamics surrounding individual narratives with the current social structure. Their completed projects include the September 11, 2001 Oral History Project, which involved hundreds of diverse interviews across New York City that captured individual memories of the attacks before they could be influenced by larger media narratives. INCITE also conducted an 150-hour project—called the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality Oral History Project—that archived the history of this program and Columbia University's leadership in the development of academics in feminism. This innovative project resulted in historic publically-accessible audio and interview transcripts.

INCITE’s interdisciplinary team, led by Director Peter Bearman, comprises staff who specialize in fields that include sociology, cultural anthropology, and history. They closely collaborate with the Columbia University Center for Oral History Research (CCOHR), a leading center for oral history practice and teaching, as well as different partners for each project. Their current interdisciplinary and collaborative research projects examine philanthropy, substance abuse, the Arab Spring, and whiteness.. They are designed to advance public intelligence around central priorities of both Columbia University and society as a whole. INCITE also trains the next generation of researchers, advancing each initiative through interdisciplinary training and education. INCITE has programs for MAs, advanced Ph.D. students, and post-doctoral fellows.

Current projects include: 

• Tunisian Transition Oral History Project -  INCITE’s team is undertaking an oral history project in order to document Tunisia’s historic transition to democracy. They are currently interviewing present and former leaders, intellectuals, and prominent members of society within that region to capture this rare political experience in Tunisia’s history as it occurs. By exploring and documenting multiple perspectives on this seemingly chaotic event, INCITE’s goal is to develop novel and relevant archives for scholars.
• Whiteness Project - INCITE’s team is part of the development of an ongoing interactive investigation on how Americans who identify as “white” experience their ethnicity, demonstrating the role of whiteness in American society. Currently, the team has successfully collected interviews in Buffalo, NY. They aim to conduct 1,000 interviews with white individuals from all around the U.S., exploring how their subjects perceive their own whiteness. By documenting the perspectives of white Americans, they want to investigate the ways it connects with larger social movements. They will illustrate how people experience their own sense of self and how that interacts—both positively or negatively—with the current cultural system. Through this project, INCITE wants to inspire reflection and foster discussions that ultimately lead to improved communication around issues of race and identity.
• Research and Empirical Analysis of Labor Migration (REALM) - The rapid development in the Gulf and the high demand for employment in sending countries has led to an influx of temporary labor migration in Gulf Cooperation Council states. Currently, the migrant labor recruitment process—which largely results in low wages and high fees for workers—is severely understudied. Taking an empirical approach, INCITE aims to understand and identify the dynamics that sustain unfair migrant labor by closely observing how this rapid movement occurs. They aim to use their innovative methods to build effective data structures that will form a groundwork of substantive and empirically-grounded insights. In doing so, the REALM project will identify what actions can be done to effectively improve these migrant labor processes and working conditions. Ultimately, REALM team members will establish a foundation for an effective "fair labor" certification system.

To learn more about INCITE’s current initiatives, visit their website at http://www.incite.columbia.edu/.