Anthropological Insights on Effective Community-Based Coalition Practice

The team coalition has become an increasingly common part of the practicing anthropologist’s lexicon. Today, anthropologists frequently utilize coalition formation as a tool for achieving positive, sustainable community change and conducting commonly-based research. In this issue of Annals of Anthropological Practice, authors critically examine factors influencing coalition participation, dispelling the notion that the coalition process itself ensures diversity, while offering concrete examples of how participatory diversity might be achieved. Anthropologists examine the complex intersection of roles they and others find themselves assuming as academic researchers, educators, concerned community members, advocates for marginalized populations, and representatives of the scientific community in community-based coalition practice. Also woven into this volume is a clear depiction of contemporary methods and theories in anthropological community coalition and partnership research. Throughout the volume contains examples of coalition program and strategies that will be of use to coalition practitioners across locations and disciplines. Anthropological Insights on Effective Community-Based Coalition Practice: An Introduction 1
Chad T. Morris and John S. Luque

Practicing Anthropology on a Community-Based Public Health Coalition: Lessons from HEAL 10
Margaret Everett

Lessons Learned from a Community Coalition with Diverse Stakeholders: The Partnership for Citrus Worker Health 27
Paul Managhan

Assessing and Achieving Diversity of Participation in the Grant-Inspired Community-Based Public Health Coalition 43
Chad T. Morris

Anti-Domestic Violence Coalition Practice: Theorizing Collaboration and Participation 66
Jennifer R. Wies

Food for Thought: Coalition Process and a Community-Based Research and Service-Learning Project 79
Carolyn Behrman

Building a Latino-Engaged Action-Research Collaborative: A Challenging University-Community Encounter 96
Ricardo Contreras and David Griffith

A Social Network Analysis Approach to Understand Changes in a Cancer Disparities Community Partnership Network 112
John S. Luque, Dinorah Martinez Tyson, Shalanda A. Bynum, Shalewa Noeil-Thomas. Kristen J. Wells, Susan T. Vadaparampil, Clement K. Gwede, and Cathy D. Meade

An Academic in an Activist Coalition: Recognizing and Bridging Role Conflicts 136
Josiah Heyman

Building Living Alliances: Community Engagement and Community-Based Partnership to Address the Health of Community Elders 154
Kim E. Radda and Jean J. Schensul

Concluding Remarks: Anthropology’s Role in Building and Sustaining Community Coalitions 174
Frances Dunn Butterfoss

Biosketches 183

Chad T Morris is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Roanoke College. An applied medical anthropologist, he focuses on means of improving community participation and dissemination of ideas in public health promotion. His current research agenda includes investigating community-driven means of increasing food security and reducing rates of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity in the Republic of Palau.

John (Juan) S Luque is an Assistant Professor in the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University. He also received an MA in cultural anthropology from Arizona State University in 1997; an MPH in epidemiology in 2004 and a graduate certificate in Social Marketing in 2010 from the University of South Florida. His primary research interests include cancer prevention and control, social marketing, and lay health advisor intervention programs. The team coalition has become an increasingly common part of the practicing anthropologist’s lexicon. Today, anthropologists frequently utilize coalition formation as a tool for achieving positive, sustainable community change and conducting commonly-based research. In this issue of Annals of Anthropological Practice, authors critically examine factors influencing coalition participation, dispelling the notion that the coalition process itself ensures diversity, while offering concrete examples of how participatory diversity might be achieved. Anthropologists examine the complex intersection of roles they and others find themselves assuming as academic researchers, educators, concerned community members, advocates for marginalized populations, and representatives of the scientific community in community-based coalition practice. Also woven into this volume is a clear depiction of contemporary methods and theories in anthropological community coalition and partnership research. Throughout the volume contains examples of coalition program and strategies that will be of use to coalition practitioners across locations and disciplines.