Learning from Experiences of Community-Engaged Scholarship and Activism

This participatory workshop will explore key debates related to community-engaged research and related scholarly activism in higher education settings, that aim to facilitate or encourage socio-political change. The workshop will begin with a brief overview of relevant research on community-engaged research and ‘scholar-activism’, providing attendees with a mapping of key epistemic, logistical and ethical issues related to working in this area. Following this, there will be three facilitated discussions which will allow participants to explore some of these issues in greater depth. Specifically, the facilitator and participants will explore:

• Their experiences of and challenges of building relationships of reciprocity with research participants, partners and individuals. Here particular attention will be paid to the realities of the higher education sector, the structures of which might often present barriers to building the types of relationships envisioned in this work.
• The ethics of working alongside or in solidarity with marginalized or at-risk communities, including a focus on the need for trauma informed approaches. What guidance or models exist to help guide this, and what experiences can we share to help inform each others’ practice?
• Experiences of and managing resistance to these forms of scholarship either from within our own institutions or from wider social forces. How do we understand and grapple with critiques surrounding ‘objectivity and neutrality’ that exist when it comes to these modes of scholarship?

The facilitator will draw on her own experiences of leading and supervising students engaged in community-based and activist/advocacy based projects and encourages participants to share their own experiences and or concerns for those about to embark in these areas of research.

Host or Publisher Center on Forced Displacement