Community Interviews: Conclusion
In this inventory, we most wanted to know what communities’ past experiences were with research, how this experience could be improved upon, and what they most needed from universities in particular. Communities were extremely generous with both their time and their insights in answering our questions, and after close analysis of their responses, the following points seem to be the most salient:
- Though environmental justice is a conceptual framework that can encompass a wide variety of issues, and though our own definition of EJ would include all the issues here within that framework, most of the communities we talked to do not explicitly define their work as environmental justice. Other conceptual frames are just as, if not more, resonant, familiar and inclusive (health, human rights, respect). This is important for EJ researchers to know — that the very conceptual framework they’re using to define a problem may not be how a community itself defines that problem.
- In terms of contacts with universities, communities report more frequent and often more positive contact with students than with professors. In fact, an inverse relationship seems to exist between a researcher’s power and position within the university context and her/his contact and connection with communities. One reason for this that communities perceived was the institutional politics imbedded in university research — the tenure system, the ultimatum to “publish or perish,” and in particular the corporate funding source for research providing the wrong incentives to investigate things or driving exploitative kinds of research. For EJ issues in particular, one barrier to collaborative research with communities is the perception of UC Davis as an “ag school,” a majority of its research funded by agribusiness interests so as to support the very environmentally unjust practices that communities are fighting.
- Though communities voiced problems of universities as extractive, exploitative, or supporting corporate/agricultural ends in their research, the larger problem seemed to be an absence of relationships between universities and communities — universities that were neglectful or disdainful of what communities/activists had to offer, or who were inconsistent, inaccessible or ineffective, failing to communicate their availability to communities, failing to follow up on the outcome of studies, and failing to move from “research” to “action.” Many communities had had very little contact with academic research and lumped researchers together with other visitors to the community who promised “real change” but failed to produce any; and most participants reported poor follow through — that they seldom saw or received the final products of studies.
- Conversely, all good experiences with university research stemmed from researchers seeking communities out, and listening to and incorporating what they wanted, needed, and thought should be done. In other words, successful collaborations followed when researchers started from the assumption that the people dealing on the ground with a particular problem were the experts on that issue or problem. Most communities we spoke with were interested in relevant academic research that they could actually use, and wanted to be kept in the loop in terms of research findings and upcoming projects to which they could contribute.
- The overall consensus was that more community participation in research design, conduct, and implementation led to stronger science and better data — both for communities and universities. However, communities also felt that since that they were up against powerful forces that wanted to invalidate their efforts, there were some things universities could provide more directly or effectively (such as official credibility). To that degree they felt that community-led research projects were helpful only if universities were willing to back them up and vouch for the legitimacy of their efforts.
- The most marginalized communities expressed a great deal of pessimism about what research could accomplish — in part because of limited contact with university research, in part because the mere presence of a researcher suggested an implicit promise of concrete benefits (which a project may or may not directly produce), and in part because for these communities, research-supported evidence doesn’t matter when you aren’t being listened to in the first place. For that reason, it is especially important in these communities for projects to produce something tangible or to be explicit about what that project can and cannot do. This means being both bilingual and (in some cases) bicultural within the community so as to be able to convey the complexities of a project. This also means taking special efforts to structure projects in these communities to be as participatory as possible, centrally involving the community in the research process as co-producers of knowledge, so that the research process is something that empowers rather than disempowers and the research product something communities can actually use.
- The most important recommendation communities had for universities in general and EJP in particular is: “Keep the lines of communication open and be consistent in your communication with us.” For most communities it was the absence rather than the presence of researchers that signaled the power imbalance between universities and communities. As expressed to us over and over again by communities, to actually get something done — for research to be part of an overall movement toward social change and greater environmental justice — communities need to know what researchers have and what they can offer; researchers need to know what communities have, know, and can offer; and then “we need to work in a collective, in a way where we’re exchanging knowledge and opportunity, treating each other with respect.”