4 Questions with Celina Su
On Thursday, Sept. 24, Celina Su, an internationally recognized expert in critical participatory action research, urban studies, and grassroots organizing, will deliver "Participation for What?," a keynote speech on the possibilities and tensions in community-based initiatives.听She will examine the practices, impact, uses听and dangers of "participation" in the New York City participatory budgeting process, and discuss her evolving insider-outsider position as a researcher working on and with such community-based initiatives.听Her presentation will begin at 4 p.m. in Old Main Chapel.
CU-麻豆影院 Today sat down with Celina Su to discuss her research and upcoming lecture at CU-麻豆影院.
What are you most looking forward to about your visit to CU-麻豆影院?
I feel incredibly honored to be invited to speak at this event.听I am most looking forward to engaging in conversations with both senior and young scholars and practitioners at CU-麻豆影院, and hearing a bit more about the local landscape of local policy issues, social struggles, research in Colorado, and at CU-麻豆影院 specifically.听
Why is this type of research important to you?
It allows us, as Paulo Freire wrote, to "become more fully human," to engage with others and come to value different forms of expertise in communities and university settings, and to work toward making a difference at multiple levels 鈥� with individuals in the communities with whom we work, potentially giving feedback to and helping to shape organizations and institutions, sometimes making a policy impact, and speaking to the literatures and academic debates that animate us most 鈥� especially when we can pinpoint specific, recurrent disconnects between theoretical models and careful observations. Alongside peer review, being accountable to communities forces me to present new forms of evidence, to perform translational work and to pay attention to the narratives, discourse and assumptions in my work in new ways.听
What can the CU-麻豆影院 and surrounding communities learn from your research?
I hope that my research projects appropriately highlight the extent to which community-based research is an intense and iterative process rife with contradictions 鈥� between, say, short-term campaign goals for community organizations and longer-term goals for social justice, or in the ways that the very same actions might simultaneously reify and resist inequalities. Perhaps these contradictions can't be resolved; they might instead serve as starting points for new hypotheses or ideas that we had not focused on before.
What is one thing you wish everyone understood about community-based initiatives?
Community-based initiatives have incredible potential to make an impact on both communities and researchers, but they must be implemented with rigor and patience. Otherwise, we academics run the risk of reproducing power inequalities and benefiting from the work (getting degrees, publications, and jobs), while community members end up half-baked, partly completed projects.听
Su's publications discuss participatory democracy and civic engagement, the politics of education and health policy, and participatory budgeting. She holds a doctoral degree in urban studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Read more about Su and her projects on听.听
Community Panel and Interactive Workshops
Celina Su鈥檚 talk is part of a two-day听event on community-based initiatives hosted by听. Her lecture will provide the framework for a community panel the following day, beginning at 9 a.m., on Friday, Sept. 25, in the Kittredge Multipurpose Room. The panelists include Shontel Lewis, Project VOYCE (Denver); Daniel Kim, Padres & J贸venes Unidos (Denver); Maya Sol Dansie, Genesister Program at 麻豆影院 County Health; and David Driskell, City of 麻豆影院 Community Planning and Sustainability.
After the community panel, faculty, undergraduate and graduate students are invited to participate in one of two interactive workshops from 10:30 a.m. - noon in the Kittredge Multipurpose Room. The workshops, facilitated by Antwan Jefferson, CU Denver, and Becca Kaplan, CU-麻豆影院, will provide opportunities for participants to connect with each other about doing community-based work.