The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture is dedicated to promoting engaged scholarship and debate around the topics of race and ethnicity, how these ideas and their structures effect and shape people's lives, and how they intersect with other primary identities such as gender, class, sexuality, and nationality. Uniquely situated both geographically and historically on the South Side of Chicago and within the University of Chicago's tradition of excellence in sociological and humanistic studies, the center maintains close links with local communities, working in partnership with community groups and activists to produce research that is theoretically innovative but also useful and empowering to those communities.