Cutting Edge Community Empowerment through Civically Engaged Research: A Roundtable Discussion and Panel

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Session Description

Political scientists have expressed interest in returning to working with ‘real’ people and communities (Dobbs et al. 2021; Smith 2020), but the pathway for how to do so in ways which do not reproduce hierarchies and inequities in political science research requires greater consideration. Civically Engaged Research (CER), a rigorous research technique involving community partners as co-producers of knowledge from conceptualizing the project to disseminating the results, offers one alternative (Rasmussen et al. 2021). Through privileging the views of individuals who are usually only seen as research subjects, CER has significant potential to empower local communities and to unsettle extant theories. APSA’s Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER), the "Civically Engaged Research and Political Science" Symposium in Political Science & Politics, and the forthcoming “How to Conduct Civically Engaged Research in A Time of Contentious Politics” Special Issue in Politics, Groups, and Identities demonstrate the significant interest behind implementing this technique.

The presentations and discussion in this session derive in part from five years of ICER, involving more than 100 political scientists as directors, speakers and fellows. The session highlights CER’s potential to rethink expertise hierarchies in political science by offering both an in-depth theoretical discussion of what it means to privilege community members’ insights and examples of CER studies with a focus on partnering with marginalized communities. Theoretical contributions of the panel to CER include re-conceptualizing how we define the “community”, providing an alternative framework for thinking about vulnerability, and offering a model of knowledge sharing with community members. The panel also provides practical models of and reflections on successfully conducting CER in the context of immigration policy and the turnout of unlikely voters. Through combining theory and practice as well as a reflective roundtable, this session invites a holistic focus on CER’s potential to offer new perspectives within political science research.

Sub Unit

• Division 58: Civic Engagement

Individual Presentations

• Empowering Local Democracy: Candidate Information and Nonpartisan Election Voting - Samantha Chapa, University of Houston; Shana Hardin, University of Houston; Lucia Lopez, University of Houston; Jeronimo Cortina, University of Houston

• What Do We Mean by “Community”? Defining Community for Civically Engaged Research - Ashley E. Nickels, Kent State University; Shelly R. Arsneault, California State University, Fullerton; Matilde Ceron, European University Institute; Curtis T Kline, Colorado State University; Nhat-Dang Do, Trinity College

• Vulnerability in Context: Rethinking Vulnerability in Civically Engaged Research - Stephanie Chan, Lafayette College; Frank Reichert, The University of Hong Kong; Rosa Castillo Krewson, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Communicating Civically Engaged Research as Resistance and Community Empowerment - Estefania Castaneda Perez, UCLA

• Re-imagining Immigration Federalism Scholarship as Civically Engaged Research - Allan Colbern, Arizona State University; Jackie Vimo, University of California, Berkeley; Shawn Walker, Arizona State University; Joelle Grande; Nargish Patwoary

Chair

• Samantha Ann Majic CUNY-John Jay College

Discussants

• Raphael J. Sonenshein Haynes Foundation

• Grace E Reinke University of New Orleans

• Valerie J. Martinez-Ebers University of North Texas

• Peter Levine Tufts University

• Adriano Udani University of Missouri, St. Louis

• Samantha Chapa University of Houston

• Rosa Castillo Krewson Virginia Commonwealth University

• Laurie L. Rice Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville