resources

This page is a living repository of resources collected and curated by the Grounded Knowledge Project. Check out our…

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GKP Webinar Series

What Is Grounded Knowledge?

In our very first public session, we introduce GKP and talk about public knowledge and community-based research in religious studies. Scholar-practitioners discuss this work, the challenges and needs of this space, and how we can help each other become more effective scholar-activists working in service to the public good.

Vocation & Location

Pursuing Grounded Knowledge within and beyond the Academy

Co-sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), this webinar explores education and career pathways for community-engaged scholars within and beyond the academy and features ACLS fellowship and curricular change initiatives that support this work.

Locating Community-Based

Research and Public Knowledge

In this webinar, we talk with experts from different disciplines and contexts-- including public history, historic preservation, museum studies, and public theology-- about how their community-engaged research contributes to and broadens the study of religion and public knowledge, both in and out of the academy.

Relational Knowledge:

Centering Community Voices

In this webinar, we talk with community leaders and public scholars about their experiences working together on community-based, collaborative research initiatives and teaching initiatives.

GKP Scholar Stories

In June 2023, The Institute for Diversity and Civic Life convened a group of scholar-practitioners who carried out community-driven projects funded by the Henry Luce Foundation during the early days of the
COVID-19 pandemic. During this retreat, these scholars shared stories about their
groundbreaking work in challenging times.

GKP Project Spotlight

The map below highlights community-driven projects that intersect with the study of religion. Click on the icons to learn more about each project and their inspiring work.

Princeton, NJ
SPIRIT HOUSE invests in and celebrates the richness and abundance of Black religions as they manifest through scholarly research, artistic expression, and community building. The projects include documentary and experimental film, digital mapping, oral history interviews, curated digital exhibits, research reports, sound installation, dance, and spoken word performance.
Boulder, CO
Our initiative aims to advance public understanding of Jews of Color in the U.S. by recovering and elevating their narratives. Centering and empowering these voices will allow us to tell new stories about the relationship between race and American Judaism–new stories that, in turn, will advance racial justice within Jewish communities, and within American society more broadly, by making more visible the roles, experiences, and challenges central to the lives of Jews of Color.
Riverside, CA
QTR is the first journal dedicated to expanding both scholarly and public knowledge about the full range of rich and complex connections between religion, gender, and sexuality.
Published twice a year, it features cutting edge scholarship in multiple formats, including not only formal academic articles, book reviews, and occasional roundtables, but also dynamic web materials and original creative works.
Baltimore, MD
The Center for Religion and Cities helps to grow innovative, collaborative solutions for improving the quality of life in our Cities. We are a collective of community partners, academics, students, and supporters working collaboratively to learn about and critically engage unjust structures in our cities and to support and grow innovative solutions to more equitable futures through mentorships for BIPOC students and emerging leaders, deep listening practices, collaborative projects, public programming, and funding opportunities.
New York
The Southwest Stories Collection within The Journal of a Plague Year seeks to highlight and preserve stories about life under the pandemic in the Southwest, especially for vulnerable individuals and communities who have, in many ways, been most impacted by the virus.
More information about the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict
Princeton, NJ
The Religion & Forced Migration Initiative (RFMI) explores, amplifies, and hopes to improve our collective understanding of the role of religion in forced migration. This site is built, and will continue to develop, with and for refugees and those who work with them, as well as for educators, students, and community members who wish to learn about and advocate for refugees.
Tallahassee, FL
The Religion, Economy, and Mutual Aid Project aims to open a committed space of practice and study for exploring the role of religion in building worlds and economies beyond the violence of racial capitalism in our present. Amid new and ongoing crises, we know that mutual aid is always present. We seek to explore how religion can serve as a creative force against the violence and destruction we currently face.
Boulder, CO
During the second half of 2022, MEDLab led seven communities to explore together the needs, ethics, and challenges of emerging decentralized technologies. What began as an errant search for practical tools became an exploration of ritual, relationship, and poetics. This fully illustrated, 80-page zine compiles reflections and learnings from the Sacred Stacks cohort.
New Jersey
SHELTER is a new initiative, piloted by the New Brunswick Theological Seminary Collaboration, that offers a rapid response to a pressing question for some of the most vulnerable people in the wider community: In an age of pandemic, what does it mean to shelter in place when you have no shelter? Item description
Louisville, KY
The Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, a program within the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences, was founded to honor the work and legacy of longtime racial justice organizer, educator and journalist Anne Braden. We seek to advance public understanding of the U.S. civil rights movement, both its powerful history and its unfinished agenda of racial and social justice.
New York
“The Movement of Joy” defines and imagines joy through the archiving of performance, looking and shifting the concept of oral histories to movement histories. This digital thesis project is an exploration and series of embodied mediations of storytelling from an improvisational practice deriving from the African American Spiritual.
New Orleans, LA
The mission of Women With a Vision is to improve the lives of marginalized women, their families, and communities by addressing the social conditions that hinder their health and well-being. We accomplish this through relentless advocacy, health education, supportive services, and community-based participatory research.