research & data justice

Here you will find more information about the principles and practices of research and data justice. We’ve also included a list of resources that provide more information on the two topics as well as wonderful folks across the country implementing them in their communities.

research justice

“Research Justice is a strategic framework that seeks to achieve self-determination for marginalized communities. It centralizes community voices and leadership in an effort to facilitate genuine, lasting social change.” — DataCenter

Our approach to research justice is informed by community-based participatory action research (CBPAR). This approach challenges the widely accepted belief that researchers know best because of the degrees they hold and the position of power they occupy. Our CBPAR strategy, on the other hand, is driven by the following:

• Community members are experts

• BIPOC communities are positioned as researchers rather than the objects of research and inquiry

• BIPOC communities already have the capacity to conduct critical and systemic inquiry into their own lived experiences

• BIPOC knowledge and expertise can counter dominant cultural narratives that center deficit models rather than strengths-based models

data justice

Data justice is an approach that redresses ways of collecting and disseminating data that have invisibilized and harmed historically marginalized communities. For decades, if not centuries, data has been weaponized against BIPOC communities, in particular, to reinforce oppressive systems that result in divestment and often inappropriate and harmful policies.

Data justice aims to capture forms of knowledge and lived experiences that are community-centered and community-driven to counter the systemic erasure and harm perpetrated on BIPOC communities via oppressive data practices. The fundamental premises of data justice are that data should: (1) make visible community-driven needs, challenges, and strengths, (2) be representative of community; and (3) treat data in ways that promote community self-determination.

research & data justice resources

What does research and data justice look like in action? Below are links to organizations and initiatives that have contributed to our understanding of and vision for research and data justice:

• Algorithmic Justice League

• DataCenter: Research for Justice

• Data for Black Lives

• Data Justice Lab

• Detroit Community Technology Project

• Healthy City

• Native Nations Institute (The University of Arizona)

• Our Data Bodies

• Urban Indian Health Institute

The following selection of articles and scholarship has shaped our thinking and practice of research and data justice:

• D'Ignazio, Catherine and Lauren F. Klein. 2020. Data Feminism. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.

• Kidd, Dorothy. 2019. "Extra-activism: counter-mapping and data justice." Information, Communication & Society 22(7): 954-970.

• Lanius, Candice. 2015. "Fact Check: Your Demand for Statistical Proof is Racist."

• Sablan, Jenna R. 2019. "Can You Really Measure That? Combining Critical Race Theory and Quantitative Methods." American Educational Research Journal 56(1): 178-203.

• Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 2008. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples.

• Tuck, Eve. 2009. "Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities." Harvard Educational Review 79(3).

• Urban Indian Health Institute. 2021. "Data Genocide of American Indians and Alaska Natives in COVID-19 Data."

• Zuberi, Tukufu and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. 2008. White Logic, White Methods: Racism and Methodology.