by Catalina Garzon

February 26th, 2010
University of California, Berkeley

DataCenter co-facilitated a workshop on “Decolonizing Research” with Pacific Institute’s Community Strategies Program at the Decolonizing the University Conference.  Hosted at Berkeley, the conference gathered hundreds of students from across the UC and CSU university systems to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Third World Strike that led to the formation of Ethnic Studies Departments at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State, and other campuses.   Miho Kim co-led the workshop with Program Co-Director Catalina Garzón. Fifteen students attended the interactive workshop, which focused on discussing the historical treatment of low-income and communities of color as “research subjects” and on re-imagining the role of researchers in documenting community-generated knowledge to support empowerment and social change.

excerpt taken from Bella Celnik’s Blog

In October 2009, at a Leadership Learning Community (LLC) Bay Area Circle, Miho Kim and Celia Davis of the DataCenter shared their learning about the “Shared Leadership” model adopted by the Center in 2006.  The two hour meeting was very well-attended, raising many questions, which as a result of the time constraints went unanswered.  The high level of interest and participation in the topic appears to reflect the degree to which many in the nonprofit sector are beginning to explore different models and ways of working together.  Miho Kim generously agreed to a follow up conversation with me to flesh out some of the questions raised at the convening (this piece is a synthesis of our interview and the Bay Area circle convening).  Read the entire article here.

Click here to learn more about DataCenter’s Shared Leadership Model.