Centre for Social Justice and Community Action

Background

Durham University’s Centre for Social Justice and Community Action (CSJCA) was set up to promote relevant, community-based participatory research. It came about thanks to one of its directors, Sarah Banks, Durham’s Theme Leader for social justice and social inclusion. She organised a series of events to gauge the level of interest in the kind of engagement the Beacon NE focuses on, and from these events, the impetus for the CSJCA grew, especially after discussions with Rachel Pain, who became the Centre’s other Director.

They both felt that a Research Centre would be a great way to try to develop a focus around the theme of co-production, bringing together people who shared a common interest in social justice to build something that would have an impact on the way the University does research. The Beacon NE was able to provide the stimulus for their efforts, through its other programmes and its vital administrative support during the Centre’s set-up period.

The CSJCA brought together individuals from a range of different departments within Durham University alongside community partners; its establishment met with considerable interest from community groups. The Centre’s launch event in June 2009 attracted over 80 participants, with approximately two thirds of them coming from community and voluntary sector groups. The discussions held at the launch event have directly informed the training events that The Centre has planned, such as work on young people as researchers.

Aims

The CSJCA aims to help raise the profile of PE within Durham University and support its staff to develop the necessary skills. Workshops for undergraduates, postgraduates, staff and members of community organisations are planned (for example, on Community Organising and Developing Participatory Action Research).

The CSJCA has already found quite an amount of interest among postgrads in looking at more community-based research, and demand for such kinds of professional development is likely to increase as the University is in the process of embedding outreach and engagement activity into its annual staff review process. Rachel Pain also established a module on participatory research that will be taken by approximately 30 Geography undergraduates in 2009-10, and will involve a number of community organisations.  This is integrated into the Geography BA degree as a third year option, and is a good example of mainstreaming PE into teaching and developing skills and interest of undergraduate students.