MAPPING GLOBAL CHICAGO

Mapping Global Chicago is a collaborative undergraduate research lab sponsored by the University of Chicago’s Global Studies Program. Students in this lab work together to create public scholarship investigating the idea of the “global city” here in Chicago. In past quarters, lab participants have studied such diverse subjects as the practice of traditional Tibetan medicine, the effect of the global COVID pandemic on education in Chicago, and the links between community efforts for environmental justice and the fight against gentrification among Chicago’s Latin American diaspora. In 2024, our lab partnered with the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts to examine the following research questions:

1. 1. How do legal actors, community organizations, and immigrants interact with the Illinois Way Forward Act? What are the different levels of understanding of this act and migrants’ rights under this new legislation?
2. 2. Considering the absence of universal representation in the immigration system, what barriers are inhibiting access to legal representation in Chicago?
   

Future labs will focus on other concerns based on student proposals, researching specific neighborhoods, industries, or institutions connecting Chicago to a broader, “global” space through flows of capital, bodies, and ideas. Both this year and moving forward, these projects involve diverse and interdisciplinary research methods undertaken by students from across the University.