Ethical Challenges for the “Outside” Researcher in Community-Based Participatory Research

Minkler, Meredith

doi:10.1177/1090198104269566

Cited by 553 publications

(529 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

519

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…21,22 Further, because community partner participation in the policy arena requires a substantial time commitment over a long period, the importance of equitable sharing of resources also is underscored. The Bdifferential reward structure^for CBPR partners, wherein outside researchers receive the lion's share of the budgetary resources, has been described elsewhere 2,24 as a major cause of insider-outsider tensions in this work that must be carefully addressed. The WE ACT partners reported negotiating such issues, particularly as their partnership matured, and the eventual success of a federal grant on which WE ACT was the primary grantee represented an important step forward.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Promoting Environmental Health Policy Through Community Based Participatory Research: A Case Study from Harlem, New York

2006

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Community-academic partnerships have demonstrated potential for studying and improving community and environmental health, but only recently have their policy impacts been systematically studied. This case study highlights the evolution, research, and policy processes and outcomes of a community based participatory research (CBPR) partnership that has had multilevel impacts on health policy concerning diesel bus emissions and related environmental justice issues. The partnership between West Harlem Environmental ACTion, Inc. (WE ACT) and the Columbia University Center for Children's Environmental Health was explored using a multimethod case study approach. The conversion of New York City's bus fleet to clean diesel and the installation by the EPA of permanent air monitors in Harlem and other Bhot spots^were among the outcomes for which the partnership's research and policy work was given substantial credit. Lessons for other urban communityacademic partnerships interested in using CBPR to promote healthy public policy are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Promoting Environmental Health Policy Through Community Based Participatory Research: A Case Study from Harlem, New York

2006

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Just as academic partners learn about the community, community representatives must also take time to learn about the university and its context (Lefever-Davis, et al, 2007;Minkler, 2004;Prins, 2005). While most community organizations are relatively small, flat and nimble, even a relatively small university like University of Victoria 5 is relatively large and has formal rules, policies and procedures.…”

Section: Implications For Community-university Partnershipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to many papers on community-based research, responsibility for this rests with researchers and others associated with the university. These individuals must approach the community with cultural humility and ensure that they understand its culture and context before undertaking activities with them (Lefever-Davis, et al, 2007;Minkler, 2004;Prins, 2005). For a partnership to be successful, all parties must understand the other, meaning that community members should undertake activities to learn about the university's context.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of a Community-University Collaboration: Opening the “Black Box”

Siemens

2012

CJNSER

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Within the Social Economy, universities are working with community representatives to undertake research projects, service learning opportunities, and increasingly, academic program development, all with the objective of addressing social challenges. As many are quick to caution, the community is actually a sum of its various actors, interests, accountabilities and needs, which university staff and faculty must work to understand. Like the community, the university is a complex organization with politics, conflicts, tensions, and competing goals and objectives. Within this larger context, these various components, focusing on government, academic and administrative stakeholders, will impact and may even limit aspects of a collaboration between the university and its community partners. Through examination of a case study related to a graduate program, which was collaboratively developed between the university and community representatives, this article will identify and explore those accountabilities and the resulting impact on the collaboration. It will conclude with recommendations for similar partnerships. RÉSUMÉDans l'économie sociale, les universités travaillent de pair avec des représentants de la communauté pour lancer des projets de recherche, créer des occasions d'apprentissage par le service et, de plus en plus, développer des programmes d'études universitaires; tout cela dans le but de régler des défis sociaux. Beaucoup s'empressent de formuler une mise en garde : la communauté est en réalité la somme des divers acteurs, intérêts, responsabilités et besoins qui la composent, ce que les membres du personnel et les facultés des universités doivent tenter de comprendre par leur travail. Au même titre qu'une communauté, une université est une organisation complexe constituée de politiques, de conflits, de tensions ainsi que d'objectifs concurrents. Dans ce contexte large, ces diverses composantes, en particulier les intervenants gouvernementaux, universitaires et administratifs, auront des conséquences sur la collaboration entre l'université et ses partenaires communautaires, et peuvent même en limiter certains aspects. Cette étude définit et analyse ces responsabilités et leurs conséquences sur la collaboration par le moyen d'une étude de cas liée INTRODUCTIONAs communities, organizations and individuals strive to address the challenges and opportunities that face them, they are partnering with universities to accomplish their goals (Baum, 2000). These collaborations range from participatory research projects (BALTA, nd;Hall, 2011;Lesser & Oscos-Sanchez, 2007) and service learning activities (Bringle & Hatcher, 2002) to curriculum development and delivery (Centre for Sustainable Community Development, nd). This trend is likely to continue as universities strive to align their academic programming and research closer with community needs and issues (Savan, et al., 2009).Challenges abound with these kinds of collaborations given universities' and communities' differing cultures and contexts. Each ...

show abstract

“…While there are many community-university research partnerships that successfully centre learning and enable social action in response to findings, many have warned that we should view these processes cautiously and engage with the substantive challenges of community-engaged research (Israel et al 2006;Minkler 2004;Smith et al 2010;Stoecker 2008;Travers et al 2013;Warr, Mann & Tacticos 2010). They call for research that interrogates the challenges in community research and a grounded assessment of power relations, institutional constraints and other challenges that emerge in community-based research projects.…”

Section: Community-university Partnerships and Transformative Learninmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the empowerment expectation: Learning, alienation and design possibilities in community-university research

Curnow

2017

Gateways

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As community-university partnerships have become mainstream, researchers have argued that these approaches have the potential to be transformative, supporting community learning and creating capacity for community development. While this remains the dominant narrative of community research, some researchers have questioned the impacts of community research on frontline community, or peer, researchers who represent partnerships in their communities. These studies complicate the narrative, suggesting that learning and capacity building are not straightforward processes. While on the whole community-university partnerships tend to be empowering for community researchers, research is needed to understand the experiences of community researchers for whom this is not the case. My research examines a Toronto-based community-university participatory action research partnership, asking what community researchers learnt through their participation. I argue that, while community researchers learnt a great deal from their participation, the overall impact was not empowerment, but alienation. They did have their knowledge of community validated, and they built research skills, developed grievances through their conversations with neighbours and interrogated the links between grievances, all of which were important aspects of their participation. However, through the process they developed, or entrenched, a sense of powerlessness and dependence on the university researchers to take up their cause politically. This contradicts the aspirations of community-university partnership models, especially participatory action research, and raises questions about the inevitability of empowering social action stemming from these research projects. I argue that the disempowerment that the community researchers reported points to the need for community research to be embedded within existing social action organisations and infrastructure to provide clearer pathways to action because, without this, peer researchers may become overwhelmed by the scope of the grievances in their neighbourhoods and withdraw from, rather than embrace, the need for collective social action.

show abstract

Ethical Challenges for the “Outside” Researcher in Community-Based Participatory Research

Cited by 553 publications

References 26 publications

Promoting Environmental Health Policy Through Community Based Participatory Research: A Case Study from Harlem, New York

Promoting Environmental Health Policy Through Community Based Participatory Research: A Case Study from Harlem, New York

The Impact of a Community-University Collaboration: Opening the “Black Box”

Challenging the empowerment expectation: Learning, alienation and design possibilities in community-university research

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About