Research Justice: a Strategic Framework to Achieve Self-determination for Marginalized Communities
“Part of having a transformative approach is about always looking for ways to push beyond or transform old barriers, and finding new ways to build power out of our interdependence.”
— Ai-jen Poo, National Domestic Workers Alliance
Research Justice is a strategic framework that seeks to achieve self-determination for marginalized communities. It centralizes community voices and leadership in an effort to facilitate genuine, lasting social change.
DataCenter believes that Research Justice is achieved when marginalized communities are recognized as experts, and reclaim, own and wield all forms of knowledge and information. With strategic support, the knowledge and information generated by these communities can be used as political leverage to advance their own agendas for change.
In order for this to become reality, the community must have:
- Control over information and knowledge that impact them;
- Capacity and resources to produce their own information and knowledge;
- Capacity and resources to use and wield all forms of its knowledge to effectively advance their agenda;
- Equal access to information outside of the community despite increasing commodification, privatization, and hyper-abundance of information;
- And, the capacity and resources to determine ‘validity’ and ‘credibility’ of information and knowledge, and methods to create them…on equal footing with all other institutions in society.
DataCenter believes this transformative change can only be achieved through powerful and strategic collaborations across geography, sectors, and issue areas. We welcome and appreciate engagement, dialog, and partnerships in all stages of our projects and initiatives. Read more about Research Justice on the Research Justice Blog.