Levitt Fellow Heather Comforto '06 (Port Townsend, Wash.) is studying three small western U.S. towns this summer, as she researches for a project titled "Creating Social Economies Within a Market Economy." She selected Port Townsend, Wash., Mendocino, Calif., and Fort Bragg, Calif., on the basis of their social consciousness.
"I'm determining how innovative and entrepreneurial ideas work to make a local economy for socially conscious communities, including moral issues of equity as well as efficiency such as environmentally friendly policy, social redistribution and control over monetary processes," said Comforto.
Comforto, who is working with Professor of Anthropology Henry Rutz, is researching economic anthropology and filing interviews with "movers and shakers" in each community who are known for their social consciousness, organization, management, innovativeness and leadership. She is also studying socio-economic data, such as income, expenditure and demographics.
"The purpose of this project is to gain ethnographic data on a type of community culture that exists in the United States yet has remained somewhat hidden from mainstream culture," she explained. "Many Americans have a belief that all American communities are essentially the same; therefore I would like to bring to the consciousness of the East Coast, the West Coast way of living."
Comforto plans to develop her Levitt project, which will result in a field report on success of data collection, preliminary results and analysis, and a film including interview footage and scenes from the communities of study, into her senior thesis.
To enhance student research around issues of public affairs, the Levitt Center funds student-faculty research through its Levitt Research Fellows Program. The program is open to all students who wish to spend the summer working in collaboration with a faculty member on an issue related to public affairs. Students receive a summer stipend and some expense money, and spend 10 weeks in the summer working intensively with a faculty mentor. Those selected for the program are required to provide a written assessment of their work at the completion of the summer, and also give a public presentation of their research findings to the Hamilton community, or local high school classes through the Levitt Scholars program.
-- by Katherine Trainor
