6. Another Research is Possible: Realizing Community Engaged Critical Research
Gretchen Lynn Gano, Prescott College; Mary Poole, Prescott College; Emily Affolter, Prescott College; Melissa Braden, Prescott College
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês, Spanish/Español/Espanhol
Fortified with critiques of extractive and colonial research practices as well as models for community-based/participatory alternatives, scholars of Science and Technology Studies articulate well why “another research is possible”. We understand that to tackle complex, systemic, and sociotechnical problems in the world there is a need to disrupt power dynamics; to redefine knowledge production; and call out the ethical, legal and social impacts of the contemporary research enterprise by cultivating community-led action research “by and for” communities, ecologies and transformation. In short, the STS community knows full well why it is important to change the status quo of research agenda setting, site selection, community, and indigenous involvement, funding, as well as to reconceptualize expertise to reorient the role of research in society. These panels explore what members of the STS community are doing, being, and agitating for to enact these changes. How can we engender change inside or outside of institutions (of higher education, government, and convention) through practices of participation, engagement, and interventions to evolve the research endeavor toward community-engaged critical research and responsible innovation? What place should community-engaged critical research have in the future of higher & STEM education? How should institutional structures and policies (ethics training and human subjects protection and risk management) be reframed to make way for critical and community led-research methods and practices? Where are opportunities for international, federal, philanthropic, policy and community-based cultivation of and capacity building for community engaged critical research?
