Center for Organizational Research (COR)

Jacob Avery
Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of California, Irvine

COR Faculty Workshop

Friday, November 22 12:00-1:30pm SBSG 1321

“Chronically Unhoused Men and the Enabling Habitat of Atlantic City, New Jersey”

Before it became an international entertainment destination, the land Atlantic City now occupies was a small island off New Jersey’s southern shore. Beginning in the early 1800s, entrepreneurial individuals believed that the island could be more: a seaside location where people could be offered experiences that differed dramatically from their daily lives. Though the city’s founders could never have imagined what this place would become, Atlantic City is no longer a barren island. While most people associate Atlantic City with gambling and well-to-do tourists, the unique entertainment landscape also provides ample opportunities for resource-poor people—the chronically unhoused—to maintain a minimal existence. Based on four years of fieldwork, this article builds on prior ethnographic work on American homelessness. I first discuss the geographic and social context of Atlantic City, then explain and build upon the analytic concept of “sustaining habitat” (Duneier, 1999) and how it is demonstrated in the urban landscape of the city. By conveying how Atlantic City’s entertainment ecology guides daily activities of chronically unhoused individuals, this article provides a detailed account of how the chronically unhoused make money, locate sleeping spots, and survive off this peculiar urban landscape. What I find is that Atlantic City’s chronically unhoused population become skilled at improvisation, capitalizing on the city’s entertainment landscape, as well as services offered by organizations, to meet their basic needs. While not exhaustive, the findings here highlight how chronically unhoused individuals in Atlantic City survive precariously using a variety of formal and informal sustenance activities. These findings begin to explain why traditional recruitment and retention treatment approaches have not reversed life chances and choices among this population.

Discussants: Maria Rendon (Social Ecology) and Nina Bandelj (Social Sciences)

INFORMATICS and COR TALK

WILLIAM J. CLANCEY, Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

Date:Friday, October 25, 2013

Talk:3:00 PM

Location: *1500 Donald Bren Hall*

Title: “Working on Mars: The Mars Exploration Rover as a Collaboration
Tool for Interdisciplinary Field Science”
ABSTRACT: The Mars Exploration Rover missions have shown over nine years
how people can scientifically explore another planet using a
programmable, mobile scientific laboratory. Through the combination of
constraint-based planning and virtual reality tools, the scientists
project themselves into the robot’s body—and so rather than replacing
them, the rover’s automation makes them agents in a remote landscape.
Following the synergistic design principle of “one instrument, one
team,” the robotic laboratory becomes a tool that promotes
collaboration, enhancing the integrative study of the planet’s geology,
climatology and possibly biological history.

BIO: Dr. William J. Clancey is Senior Research Scientist at the Florida
Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. He was previously on
assignment to NASA Ames Research Center as Chief Scientist for
Human-Centered Computing, Intelligent Systems Division (1998-2013). He
received his Computer Science Ph.D. from Stanford University and his
Mathematical Sciences B.A. from Rice University. A founding member of
Institute for Research on Learning (1987-1997), he also created Brahms,
a multi-agent system for modeling and simulating work practices. He is a
Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, AAAI, and the
American College of Medical Informatics. His seven books include
Situated Cognition and Working on Mars, and he has presented invited
tutorials and keynote addresses in over 20 countries.

Friday, October 18th, 12:00-1:30pm

Venue: SBSG (Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway) 1517

Our 2013-14 COR Kick-Off Event is an academic version of speed dating. We
have done this for a few years in the past and it has been both fun and
generative. This is an opportunity to learn more about the interests of
other COR members, to explore possible synergies and to receive some very
quick feedback on your research. We especially encourage graduate students
working on research on organizational topics to attend.

Here’s how it works:

• You come prepared to describe your research in 3 minutes or less.
• We pair you up with another researcher.
• Each person has 5 minutes to talk (3 minutes to describe and 2 minutes for q&a).
• After 10 minutes, we form new pairs and start again.
• We continue for 5-6 rotations.
• The remaining time can be used to continue the conversations that you wish to be longer.

Don’t forget to RSVP to alex.toll@uci.edu as a light lunch will be provided.