Research Methodology
Promise Zone Arts South LA (PZA:SLA) is a community-based, cultural asset mapping and activation initiative that uses a multi-step, participatory field research process designed specifically to execute the project’s community vision. Field research and ethnographic methods, in combination with oral history and community workshops, are implemented to gather data and generate stories. This process of naming and mapping cultural treasures helps generate cultural awareness among constituents and communities. Building on existing social capital, our research also helps create a network of cultural bearers and leaders.
PZA:SLA uses a nine-step process piloted in DCA’s previous community-based cultural asset-mapping project in the Central Los Angeles Promise Zone:
1. Promise Zone Designation: Promise Zone is a federal designation associated with a collective impact strategy nationwide involving leaders from government, local institutions, nonprofits and community organizations to target resources to create jobs, boost public safety, improve public education, and stimulate better housing opportunities for our residents and neighborhoods.
2. Cultural Micro-Communities: Consulting with constituents and organizations within Promise Zone neighborhoods, the project team establishes a participatory, community-input gathering process that is tailored to identify and recognize cultural assets meaningful to the community.
3. Questionnaire: A survey is designed to capture community nominations of artists, sites, cultural practices, and tradition-bearers that residents and constituents deem significant.
4. Fieldwork: A team of ethnographers conducts field research using the survey to gather cultural treasure nominations at neighborhood events and meetings. Additionally, a digital form is distributed online to collect Cultural Treasures nominations from participants outside of face-to-face field interactions.
5. Data Creation: The data team aggregates the data collected from the questionnaire implementation and creates a searchable database of structured content gathered from fieldwork.
6. Committee Feedback: The Cultural Treasure Coalition, along with additional community members, provide feedback on the list of Cultural Treasures nominated by individual residents and constituents.
7. Multimedia Storytelling: The ethnographers and content team develop narratives and media content highlighting the history and story of Cultural Treasures.
8. Website Production: A website including an interactive map of Cultural Treasures and a searchable database is created to showcase the community-based research findings. Community users and participants may browse the Web-based storybank to explore narratives and media profiling each Cultural Treasure.
9. Public Sharing: Public sharing events featuring performances, food and workshops unveil and celebrate Cultural Treasures with community participants and related stakeholders.
Data Vetting Process
The PZA:SLA research methodology was informed by and implemented with the community of the South Los Angeles Promise Zone under the guidance of PZA:SLA’s Cultural Treasures Coalition: C. Jerome Woods, Marie Kellier, Nobuko Miyamoto, Will Flores and Adé Neff. Additional community advisors joined the process on an ad hoc basis.
Through focus groups, tabling, street teams, flyers, social media and word-of-mouth, residents of South LA were invited to submit nominations for Cultural Treasures that they felt were meaningful to the community—defining its past, present and future.
The first all-partner planning meeting to launch the initiative was held in January 2022. Surveying and community engagement started in May 2022 with USC’s formal Qualtrics survey closing on October 31, 2022. Additional nominations from the community were considered through December 31, 2022.
All nominations were compiled into a comprehensive dataset, de-duped, cleaned and geocoded by the end of January 2023. A preliminary vetting process was conducted in early February, removing nominations that fell outside the SLATE-Z zip codes or did not meet minimum standards of completion.
Student researchers were engaged to help confirm addresses and find additional information on the nominated Cultural Treasures when the nomination form was inconclusive.
Then, Cultural Treasures Coalition members were invited, alongside ad hoc community advisors, to review segments of the dataset in consideration of the following criteria:
- Embedded within South Los Angeles
- Contributes to community wellness and connectivity
- Has a significant economic, social or political impact in South Los Angeles
- Unique to, or distinctly represents the character of, South Los Angeles
- Artistic, creative or cultural merit
Twenty community members and stakeholders gathered for an in-person vetting session convened on March 4, 2023, resulting in a final list of Cultural Treasures comprising the current Cultural Treasures of South LA database.
Additionally, a group of 20 Cultural Treasures were identified to be featured on the website as a way to illustrate the history, richness and diversity of cultural life in South LA.
A PROMISE ZONE ARTS INITIATIVE
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