Community Research for Liberation Webinar Series Launches Sept 9!
With presenters and participants from across the country, our Community Research for Liberation National Convening made clear that Research in Action is not alone in our approach. To highlight examples of community-centered research that disrupts top-down approaches and to support a growing movement of people who are reimagining research as a tool to support healing, liberation, and transformation, we are excited to launch our new monthly webinar series.
Join us on Wednesday, September 9, from 12 to 1 p.m. Central time for our first webinar: Research Models for Liberation.
Centering community in research requires intentional frameworks that disrupt top-down approaches. What steps can your organization or institution take to ensure your research and evaluation work is led by community expertise—and results in actionable outcomes for racial justice?
In this webinar, we’ll unpack and explore RIA’s Equity in Action model and the five liberatory research principles of Social Insights Research— both of which strategically embed those most impacted as research project leaders and architects.
In this conversation, Dr. Brittany Lewis, founder and CEO of Research in Action — as well as author of the new book “Building a New Table: A Community-Centered Handbook for Transformative Social Change” — and Dr. Zuri Tau, founder and CEO of Social Insights Research, will share real-world examples and tangible processes and practices you can apply to your work no matter your sector or issue to create more authentic engagement and more effective outcomes.
Dr. Brittany Lewis
is a Black feminist scholar-activist and the Founder and CEO at Research in Action: a ground-breaking Minneapolis-based social benefit corporation that leads projects that center community expertise to create actionable solutions for racial justice. A former Professor, University Research Institute Director, and Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank Scholar-in-Residence, Dr. Lewis has spent more than 15 years working in partnership with local communities impacted by racial injustice to co-create new knowledge and drive policy change that makes a real difference in people’s lives. A process she explores in her 2024 TEDx Minneapolis talk, “The Illusion of Choice.” She is the recipient of many awards, including a Bush Foundation Fellowship, History Makers at Home Award from the Minnesota Civil Rights Department, and the author of the book, Building a New Table: A Community-Centered Handbook for Transformative Social Change, from the University of Minnesota Press.
Dr. Zuri Tau
is the founder and CEO of Social Insights Research. As a sociologist, licensed mental health professional, and yoga teacher, she leads by centering collective care, healthy boundaries, and liberatory theory and praxis. She is also the founder of Liberatory Research, an initiative to co-create a space to amplify BIPOC perspectives and advance power and liberation in research and evaluation. She has contributed to curriculum for movement organizer-leaders, and has taught workshops on decolonizing research, trauma-informed care, and practicing evaluation from a racial equity lens.