Description

When the Topic Is Racism: Research and Advocacy with a Community Coalition

Author Haluza-DeLay provides an account of the process of a community-initiated research project on racism in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Randolph Haluza-DeLay offers a case study of a community-initiated research project on racism in Thunder Bay, Ontario, a city in which aboriginal peoples make up roughly 12% of the population. His assessment is that the project was successful in that the public release of the research study, which documented racial incidents and racializing social practices in the community, contributed to “effectively promoting social change.” Yet Haluza-DeLay also describes some thorny issues involved in projects, including practical issues in the research process regarding research questions and methods, the intersection of theory with practical knowledge, research as disguised activism, research criticized as divisive to the community, and research as knowledge production. He warns that academic research aimed at promoting social justice must be creative in communicating with marginalized community groups that have seen the ivory tower well-gated and academia often serving to reproduce conditions of marginality.

racism, aboriginal peoples, academic-community relations, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 30, No. 4 (2003): 77-90