ROBIN CHANDLER conducts applied interdisciplinary research in social sciences and the arts. Her research, publications, projects and teaching currently focus on the problems and challenges of micro-enterprise development among artisans globally, but concentrating on the developing world. On-going research includes critical analyses of contemporary popular culture movements as well as the transnational impact of information and communications technologies on culture, the arts, and communities of color and gender empowerment.

FROM an international perspective, arts and culture communities are frequently not represented in the comprehensive economic plans of many nations. International development strategies focused on poverty reduction are increasingly directing energy and funds on initiatives that incorporate artisans and the preservation of cultural heritage into social and economic development. Micro-enterprise and micro-lending interventions have demonstrated their effectiveness in reducing extremes of poverty. Many developing countries which may/not themselves provide the substantive freedoms which are necessary to real community-based development. A microenterprise model for arts and cultural heritage which looks at "art-as-development" reflects a development-from-within approach in which universal participation or participatory action research(PAR) in projects and businesses from planning through management is initiated among artists themselves.

Chandler's international work on six continents as teacher, lecturer, community project developer, and artist is rooted in the principles of the inherent nobility of individuals, oneness of humanity, the elimination of all forms of prejudice, spiritual solutions to economic problems, and the elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty elimination of all forms of prejudice, spiritual solutions to economic problems, and the elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty elimination of all forms of prejudice, spiritual solutions to economic problems, and the elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty. She has been a cultural affiars commentator for WGBH-TV Boston, is a former Fulbright scholar and is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Science Foundation.