Pictured in group photo (from left to right): Adam Reich, Co-Winner 2019 Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award; Peter Bearman, Co-Winner 2019 Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award; Ira I. Katznelson, Interim Provost, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, and Deputy Director, Columbia World Projects; Jane Gaines, Chair Faculty Publication Committee and Co-Chair Distinguished Book Award Jury; Jennifer Crewe, Associate Provost and Director, Columbia University Press. Photo taken at the 2019 Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award ceremony

"Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Walmart," a book by Adam Reich and Peter Bearman that details INCITE's Summer for Respect project, has received the 2019 Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award. The press hosted an award ceremony for the book on September 25th.

To learn more about the book or purchase it, visit here.

Working for Respect is an examination of the position of workers in places like Walmart in the struggle for economic and social justice. Reich and Bearman focus on the unique position of Walmart in the American workforce and what this model poses for the future of labor. One possible future which they discuss, Walmartism, looks at the ways that increasingly centralized control limits workers’ ability to control their working conditions and their lives.

By matching student activists with the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart), Reich and Bearman pursue questions of collective identity, the role of traditional unions and the relationship between social ties and social change culminating in this book which stands as an important reflection on the development and future of the modern workplace.

The book is now available for pre-order.

The Huffington Post published its listing of oral history projects to watch and featured INCITE's Summer for Respect program. The two-month program has sent 20 interns to five sites across the United States: Dallas, Central Florida, Chicago, Cincinatti, and Southern California.

Read the full article.

During the 2014 summer INCITE will host several training programs that aim to provide researchers and students with an understanding of the principles and skills to design and conduct social research.

The summer programs include: Summer for Respect, a summer-long internship program co-sponsored by OurWalmart; The Summer Institute, a two-week oral history training program; and Social Sciences Summer, a training program of high school students from China interested in pursuing social sciences in college.

Internship description

Fifty years ago, in the summer of 1964, students from around the country traveled to Mississippi to participate in Mississippi Freedom Summer. Working hand-in-hand with civil rights organizations and African American residents of Mississippi, these students helped to shine a spotlight on the deep injustices of Jim Crow. At the same time, these students came to see the world with "Mississippi eyes," deepening their own commitment to racial and economic justice in ways that would last a lifetime.

To mark the anniversary of Freedom Summer, OUR Walmart and Columbia University's Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE) are teaming up on a program to document the economic disenfranchisement that continues to afflict our country. Students from around the country, hand-in-hand with Walmart worker-leaders, will participate in an intensive summer of organizing and oral history documentation.

The project will last from May 26th to August 3. We will begin with an intensive four-day training in organizing, oral history, and video co-facilitated by OUR Walmart and INCITE, to take place between May 26th and May 29th at Columbia University. Students will then travel in teams to one of four regions across the country, where they will embed themselves with existing workers' organizations. For the next nine weeks, students will be a part of ongoing organizing campaigns, with a particular focus on conducting oral history interviews with workers, customers, and community members. The group will then regroup in New York City at the beginning of August (August 1-3) for a debrief and celebration, where we will plan next steps for the campaign.

Students will learn to do the following:

• Provide support and coaching to existing OUR Walmart leaders as they engage, recruit, and mobilize their co-workers.

• Build relationships with Walmart workers in their communities by visiting stores, identifying friends and relatives of local union members and community members.

• Conduct oral-history interviews with Walmart workers, customers, and community members.

• Identify and produce compelling narrative "shorts" that succinctly articulate the impact of Walmart on workers, customers, and communities.

How to apply

Students will be paid a stipend for their participation in the program, and will be reimbursed for travel expenses. As a part of their participation, students will be encouraged to help raise funds to cover program expenses. Interested students should email organizing@columbia.edu with a CV and a short letter explaining their interest, with the subject line "Summer for Respect." Letters of interest are due no later than April 25th, although we will be offering rolling admissions to qualified applicants.