Capacity to Partner

1. Capacity to Partner The Importance of Not Getting Carried Away Randy Stoecker CU Expo 2005

2. CBR as Savior • It reinvigorates academic careers. • It gives a new reason for being. • It multiplies our sense of self-importance.

3. Getting Carried Away • The good: • Academics see all kinds of research that could help communities. • Academics want to “help”.

4. Getting Carried Away • The Bad • Academics inundate poor communities with offers of research and students. • Academics impose their schedule and grant funding formulas on CBR projects.

5. Getting Carried Away • The Ugly • Academics who see communities as laboratories. • Academics who impose pet academic theories.

6. Learning to Listen • Community Groups may not know how to respond to offers of ill-fitting help. • Community groups may not know how to form their own research question. • Community groups may not have the capacity to supervise students.

7. Building Capacity to Partner • Community groups need to organize to demand appropriate research partnerships. • Community groups need knowledge to hold research academics accountable • Community groups need to promote their own ways of knowing.

8. … "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time... But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." Lilla Watson, Murri elder, Australia