World News – US – Former U of C researcher receives MacArthur Foundation ‘genius scholarship’

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Forrest Stuart will receive $ 625,000 to continue his research; he wants to return to the southern district of Chicago to study the effects of violence on women

Former University of Chicago sociologist Forrest Stuart spent months hanging out with gang members on the South Side in an attempt to understand how social media, especially the proliferation of homemade boring music videos featuring armed rappers, gang-related violence

His work was recognized on Tuesday by the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation, which awarded Stuart what is now known as an « engineering scholarship. » This year, that means Stuart will receive $ 625,000 to continue his career. work on difficult assumptions about the forces that shape urban poverty and violence

He is one of this year’s class of 21 MacArthur Fellows, a group of fellows that also includes Nels Elde, an evolutionary geneticist who received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2005, along with others from across the country in a host of other disciplines: writers, a chemical engineer, a cognitive neuroscientist and an anthropologist, to name a few

Stuart, 38, who moved to California last year to teach at Stanford University, was taking a shower when he heard his cell phone ring and saw a number with an area code 773, but he didn’t expect to hear people from MacArthur calling

Violence recently invaded the lives of young men Stuart knew on the streets of the South Side, and they called out for him for help.

« I was sort of preparing for the worst, but it was actually one of the best calls I’ve ever had in my life, » he said

Stuart has earned the trust of one particular gang he describes using pseudonyms in a book published earlier this year: Ballad of the Bullet: Gangs, Drill Music, and the Power of Online Infamy

Stuart helped run an after-school program that taught children to use podcasts as a creative way to deal with the trauma of growing up around violence

The children in the program had older brothers who were involved in the gang « They saw the affection and trust their little brothers had for me and they let me in, » he said

Soon Stuart was spending the whole day with the gang, watching YouTube videos for hours, playing dice, and doing laps around the four blocks they controlled. It became their option to choice for courthouse walks, medical appointments and family gatherings And its passenger seat has turned into a sort of confessional

« They’re seen as those hardened guys who are gang members – hardened and hardened killers But they’re also very traumatized, scarred guys and victims of this bravado, » he said, noting that several were are open and told him they carried guns because they were afraid

Guns were never allowed in Stuart’s car And he made a deal with the gang: « If a rival gang were to carry out a drive-through shootout, call me right away and I’ll come and pick up so much. ‘between you as possible and we’ll go to TGIF and eat $ 5 entrees until things get colder « 

One of Stuart’s main conclusions: Social media slurs and violence depicted in music videos are less of a bloodshed in real life than politicians and police often claim – well on the contrary, in fact

« In fact, I think social media gives young men an outlet, allowing them to be seen as bada – without having to act in the street But at the same time it also works the other way around. guys with too much influence and recognition drilling videos become easy targets for people who want to hurt them, « he said

With the help of the grant, Stuart plans to return to the same south side and focus his research on women and how the violent loss of a gang member affects the lives of sisters, little ones friends, daughters and mothers

« It allows me to think more outside the box, » Stuart said of the grant

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MacArthur Fellowship, MacArthur Foundation