Ricochet's Unpacking The News

Researchers with the best of intentions still get things wrong. “Who made you the expert” is a valid question that research subjects might ask… and frankly, they’re right to ask that. If you’re, say, a drug user in Vancouver’s downtown east side you probably don’t want some guy from Harvard telling you what paternalistic research he’s doing on you. You want to be a partner in research done with you. So what does it look like when the old paternalistic ways are dispensed of? Garth Mullins hosts Crackdown, a podcast about the drug war in Vancouver covered by the drug users themselves. Gordon talks to him about being the researcher and the researched in the downtown east side, a place where activists and academics have come together to develop better methods. We also talk to Michelle Fine of City University of New York. She’s a leading proponent of “critical participatory action research“. That’s a way of researching that de-centres the academic. We find out the theory, and what that means for expertise more b