2007
Telling Our Stories:
Research Justice at USSF
by Kim Rodgers, miho
Kim, Anna Couey, Roger White
 |
| photo: guillermo |
The first
U.S. Social Forum, held in Atlanta this summer, was an exhilarating
and powerful convergence of grassroots social movements
from across the U.S. and international allies seeking to
build another world together.
DataCenter traveled
to the USSF to kick off a growing movement for research
justice and to build strategic research expertise in organizing
communities. We convened Telling Our Stories:
Information by and for the people!, a participatory
workshop exploring how research methodologies and infrastructure
privilege those with power and perpetuate systemic oppression,
and identifying strategies for reclaiming research to build
community power and liberation. Participants shared their
research experiences, brainstorming together the lessons
learned from successes and strategies to overcome challenges
voiced. We also began to articulate the research needs of
our social justice movements – how to build our research
infrastructure to build knowledge, leadership and community
power for the long haul. The workshop served both to bring
research justice to the table, to share stories from our
communities and about our use of knowledge, to understand
the ways in which research justice is part of our struggles
for liberation, and to lay groundwork for a continuing process.
As part of our work
to build movement research infrastructure, particularly
in the South, DataCenter with Highlander Research &
Education Center and Project South launched Southern
Movement Building Project, a participatory needs
assessment initiative that engages communities in identifying,
analyzing and building infrastructure that meets the research
and leadership development needs of groups on the ground.
USSF provided the opportunity to connect with a broad range
of groups and gather initial data; the project plans to
continue with local survey collection and regional gatherings
to discuss needs and develop plans in collaboration with
organizing efforts in the South.
DataCenter also produced
a series of fact sheets about the impact of incarceration
on families and communities in the South, produced for Fairness
for Prisoners’ Families, a project of the
Southern Center for Human Rights, as part of a “family
reunion” of prisoners’ families at the USSF.
We returned to
Knoxville and Oakland inspired and committed to building
research justice with the groups that collectively made
the USSF and the social forum process.
For further
information:
U.S. Social Forum - www.ussf2007.org
Southern Movement Building Project - email kim
[at] datacenter [dot] org
Fairness for Prisoners' Families - www.fairness4families.org
Kim Rodgers, miho
kim and Anna Couey are Information Activists at DataCenter.
Roger White is a former Information Activist at DataCenter.
