Engaging Contradictions

Scholars in many fields increasingly find themselves caught between the academy, with its demands for rigor and objectivity, and direct engagement in social activism. Some advocate on behalf of the communities they study; others incorporate the knowledge and leadership of their informants directly into the process of knowledge production. What ethical, political, and practical tensions arise in the course of such work? In this wide-ranging and multidisciplinary volume, leading scholar-activists map the terrain on which political engagement and academic rigor meet.

Contributors: Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Edmund T. Gordon, Davydd Greenwood, Joy James, Peter Nien-chu Kiang, George Lipsitz, Samuel Martínez, Jennifer Bickham Mendez, Dani Nabudere, Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Jemima Pierre, Laura Pulido, Shannon Speed, Shirley Suet-ling Tang, João Vargas

Charles R. Hale is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. For 2006-7, he is President of the Latin American Studies Association.

Contents

Acknowledgments 
A Note on Resources 
Foreword, by Craig Calhoun 
Introduction 
Charles R. Hale

PART I. MAPPING THE TERRAIN
1. Forgotten Places and the Seeds of Grassroots Planning 
    Ruth Wilson Gilmore
2. Research, Activism, and Knowledge Production 
    Dani Wadada Nabudere
3. Breaking the Chains and Steering the Ship: How Activism Can Help Change Teaching and Scholarship 
    George Lipsitz
   
PART II. TROUBLING THE TERMS
4. Activist Groundings or Groundings for Activism? The Study of Racialization as a Site of Political Engagement 
    Jemima Pierre
5. Globalizing Scholar Activism: Opportunities and Dilemmas through a Feminist Lens 
    Jennifer Bickham Mendez
6. Activist Scholarship: Limits and Possibilities in Times of Black Genocide 
    João H. Costa Vargas
7. Making Violence Visible: An Activist Anthropological Approach to Women’s Rights Investigation 
    Samuel Martínez
   
PART III. PUTTING ACTIVIST SCHOLARSHIP TO WORK
8. Forged in Dialogue: Toward a Critically Engaged Activist Research 
    Shannon Speed
9. Community-Centered Research as Knowledge/Capacity Building in Immigrant and Refugee Communities 
    Shirley Suet-ling Tang
10. Theorizing and Practicing Democratic Community Economics: Engaged Scholarship, Economic Justice,
      and the Academy 
      Jessica Gordon Nembhard
    
PART IV. MAKING OURSELVES AT HOME
11. Crouching Activists, Hidden Scholars: Reflections on Research and Development with Students and
      Communities in Asian American Studies 
      Peter Nien-chu Kiang
12. Theoretical Research, Applied Research, and Action Research: The Deinstitutionalization of
      Activist Research 
      Davydd J. Greenwood
13. FAQs: Frequently (Un)Asked Questions about Being a Scholar Activist 
      Laura Pulido
    
Afterword: Activist Scholars or Radical Subjects?
by Joy James and Edmund T. Gordon 

Contributors
Index