Our work
Our mission is to create knowledge for public action—to catalyze conversations that lead to more just, equitable, and democratic societies. We enact this mission through several centers and initiatives.
Centers
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As one of the world's leading centers for the practice and teaching of oral history, the Columbia Center for Oral History Research seeks to record unique life histories, document the central historical events and memories of our times, provide public programming, and teach and do research across the disciplines.
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Columbia Labor Lab leverages the tools of social science to understand and strengthen efforts to rebuild the economic and political power of workers. The Labor Lab works in partnership with unions and worker associations, affording us access to unique data and providing us opportunities to directly test the implications that follow from our work.
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The Columbia Privacy Lab (“c/privacy lab” or “cpl”) helps communities collectively advocate for privacy. We pose technical and sociological questions around user privacy and rights, connected to broader themes of democracy, transparency, and public trust. Cpl teaches skills for protecting privacy in digital, educational/campus, and community spaces. Cpl provides space for reciprocal learning opportunities, building trust and creating accessible ways of understanding digital privacy and its far reaching socio-political consequences.
As an entity embedded in Columbia University, we recognize the historical and institutional legacies of the campus’ relationship to its neighbors. Cpl is committed to learning alongside people of color and marginalized communities.
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The proliferation of large-scale, administrative datasets from private companies and governments has created the opportunity to answer entirely new questions about economic well-being and upward mobility. This opportunity requires understanding the limits of such data, bringing fieldwork to bear as needed, and addressing new conceptual, methodological, and ethical challenges. We stimulate collaborations among sociologists, economists, ethnographers, spatial analysts, urban planners, and others to better understand inequality and increase opportunity.
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Building the United States' first archive to center the political ideas and movement-building of incarcerated individuals.
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Columbia University’s Oral History Master of Arts Program is the first program of its kind in the United States: a one-year interdisciplinary MA degree training students in oral history method and theory. Through the creation, archiving and analysis of individual, community and institutional histories, oral history amplifies the critical first-person narratives that constitute memory for generations to come.
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The Trust Collaboratory explores the social dynamics of trust through interdisciplinary, collaborative, and publicly-engaged formats. The Trust Collaboratory leverages its work to better understand how building and repairing trust can support a thriving democracy in the 21st century.
Projects
