Community partnerships in research shift participation beyond informed consent into shared knowledge creation

Evidence

Third, and increasingly, a notion of community-based participatory research as a part of procedural justice is taking hold in the movement. In this process, ‘scientists work in close collaboration with community partners involved in all phases of the research, from the inception of the research questions and the study design, to the collection of the data, monitoring of ethical concerns, and the interpretation of the study results’ (Shepard et al. 2002). The related practice of popular epidemiology (Brown and Mikkelsen 1990; Brown 1992) was at the heart of a couple of key environmental justice battles—community health surveys done with community involvement were crucial to understanding cases of contamination in Love Canal and Woburn. A number of academics and EJ activists see participatory research as a way for the movement to build relationships with researchers. While the idea of a ‘communiversity’ (Wright 1995) was idealistic, it was the impetus for environmental justice research centers at universities such as Clark and Xavier. More often, partnerships develop between researchers and communities on particular issues, where communities participate as partners and research subjects simultaneously. This model of more full, authentic participation goes beyond just informed consent in environmental justice research, into full partnership in the creation of community knowledge. … Interestingly, while we do not see in many definitions of environmental justice the emphasis on liberal individualism that is at the heart of many theories of liberal justice, the focus on procedure illustrates the importance and resonance of those theories and their focus on impartiality and just procedures to adjudicate among different substantive goals and conceptions of life. Yet, again, as with both equity and recognition, the issues involved in participatory justice need to be understood and addressed at both the individual and community level. The relationship between individual experience and community achievement is crucial to the practice of participation as an element of environmental justice, and empowerment is the key here. — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 253

Categorization

• DEFINE: Specifies what full procedural justice looks like inside environmental research: community partnership in every phase, popular epidemiology, going beyond informed consent.
• XREF: Popular epidemiology and community-based participatory research connects to listening/observation-as-method threads in Eco-Justice and Soundscape readings — knowledge produced by affected communities versus expert distance. — connects to: Participatory justice links individual empowerment to collective achievement rather than liberal individualism — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 254; Educational knowledge production requires co-intent participation rather than one-sided transmission — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 176; Collaborative thought is qualitatively different from individual writing and critical-dialogical engagement deepens understanding — Collective Writing: The Continuous Struggle for Meaning-Making (+2 more)
• ADDENDUM: Directly supplies procedural-justice machinery for both the trees piece (who decides which infrastructure, by what research practice) and sacrifice piece (who defines harm).

Broader Connections

• Educational knowledge production requires co-intent participation rather than one-sided transmission #expands (0.82) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 176
• Research should be a citizen’s right to knowledge tools, not an academic monopoly #expands (0.82) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 636