by Magda Goemans, CFICE CES (Ottawa) Hub RA
In the Community Environmental Sustainability (CES) Ottawa Hub, we are about to share reflections on the day-to-day experience of community-campus engagement (CCE) in the upcoming release of the edited volume Seeking Equity and Inclusion in Canadian Municipalities, to be published by McGill-Queen’s University Press (pending peer review), and co-edited by Fran Klodawsky, Janet Siltanen and Caroline Andrew. The chapter that we have contributed to this volume, titled Supporting Local Civic Engagement through a “Community First” Approach to Foster Broader Social Inclusion in Development, examines the social sustainability efforts initiated by our community partner, Sustainable Living Ottawa East (SLOE), in response to a substantial new residential development that will soon be taking shape in their neighbourhood. Much of the chapter is devoted to a critical exploration of SLOE’s advocacy to the developer for a greater proportion of seniors and affordable housing to be included within this new development (including a related initiative, Innovative Housing for Older Adults in Old Ottawa East, which is geared towards also establishing a seniors’ cohousing community within this site).
The final section of the chapter contains a critical analysis of our own methods of engaging with our community partner. The writing process inspired us to consider challenges and opportunities associated with working with a group of residents that holds a certain degree of power within the community (as compared to a more vulnerable or marginalized population). We also considered issues of ethics, power relations and positionality associated with mobilizing knowledge related to the inner workings of the group. As part of this process, we invited a member of SLOE to review and respond to what we had written; her comments were then included within the final version of the chapter. Here are some brief excerpts from that exchange between our own reflections as CCE researchers and the community partner response:
CFICE reflection:
“[The experience of this engagement led us to] ask ourselves: What responsibilities do researchers have in exposing community partners to critical scholarship and academic insights? The truth is, it can be difficult to act as a critical friend, to challenge another’s process, even when the ultimate aim of the researcher is to further the social or environmental goals of the community partners. In these cases, what does it mean to put community first? What responsibilities do researchers have to propose academic knowledge and methods to help move the community partners’ objectives forward in a positive and meaningful way? We were not always able to initiate such fierce conversations, partly due to time and funding constraints, but also because we were concerned that it may not be our place to do so.”
Community Response:
“Interesting and good food for thought. I frankly never thought about our relationship in these terms, but would have been (and would be) more than open to some stirring of the pot – e.g., via a presentation to the group on some more critical/challenging viewpoints. Maybe we should have explicitly established this as an element of the working relationship right from the outset? … I do appreciate that … [the RA] played an important role in keeping a focus on affordability and has also gently re-inserted other goals and principles (including environmental sustainability itself) along the way when they risked getting lost in the shuffle.”
CFICE reflection:
“[The approach we adopt] offers opportunities for the researcher to expose citizen groups to scholarly concepts (and their accompanying disciplinary jargon) related to diversity and inclusion, as well as responses to/engagement with neoliberal modes of governance. However, we must also remain attentive to the impact(s) of our discourse… How might a slippage between the particular vocabularies employed in [academic and non-academic worlds] influence power relationships between community partners and research assistants? Differing languages (such as those of policymaking and academia) may, consciously or unconsciously, intimidate or preclude understanding. They could also create boundaries around groups or ways of knowing to the exclusion of others. How might these manifest within these relationships – in both directions (i.e. working with the powerful)?”
Community Response:
“Also very good questions and perspectives. There is no doubt we would have had a hard time accommodating highly academic discourse and ideas in the midst of the very concerted practical efforts that needed to be made, on a volunteer basis, to advance our cause. That said, as noted above, a more explicit agreement to accommodate some of this kind of discourse as we went along might have made for some interesting additional explorations.”