Angie Bautista-Chavez and Stephanie Chan
November 1, 2023
ICER is a four-day, residential institute that provides political scientists of any rank or institutional affiliation with training to conduct ethical and rigorous civically engaged research (CER). CER can be defined as an approach to inquiry that involves political scientists collaborating in a mutually beneficial way with people and groups beyond the academy to co-produce, share, and apply knowledge related to power or politics in a way which contributes to self-governance. ICER is an initiative of APSA’s Presidential Task Force on New Partnerships. This program welcomed its fifth cohort in July 2023 and it was led by Peter Levine (Tufts University) and Valeria Sinclair-Chapman (Purdue University).
For Dr. Angie Bautista-Chavez (Arizona State University), a scholar of migration, borders, bureaucracy, and Latinx politics, and a first-gen college student from rural Texas, the mission of the ICER aligned with her commitments to create more complete accounts of American politics and to create more equitable systems of knowledge production. For Dr. Stephanie Chan (Lafayette College), a scholar studying racial politics, immigration, citizenship, and political participation, ICER was a key resource of expertise and support to develop her book project about the racialized incorporation and political participation of immigrant communities.
For both Bautista-Chavez and Chan–two faculty women of color from immigrant families that have been vilified in various ways across the United States and throughout U.S. history–CER means developing research not only about communities of color and immigrant communities, but with communities of color and immigrant communities, and not only treating people of color and immigrants as subjects of study, but also recognizing the agency and expertise of people of color and immigrant communities. ICER was a transformative experience during which both Bautista-Chavez and Chan gained renewed confidence in their research, received feedback on their research projects, and developed a community of scholars with shared research commitments.
The ICER 2023 cohort was diverse, including scholars from various racial and ethnic backgrounds and across different stages, including doctoral students, early-career scholars, adjunct faculty, and full professors. Members of the ICER 2023 cohort included Shelly Arsneault, Angie Bautista-Chavez, Jill Birren, Matilde Ceron, Stephanie Chan, Dang Do, Raychel Gadson, Curtis Kline, Rosa Krewson, Valerie Martinez-Ebers, Ankushi Mitra, Ashley Nickels, Rodrigo Nunes, Frank Reichert, Laurie Rice, Elizabeth Sharrow, and Evelyn Simien. During the institute, ICER Fellows participated in large group discussions and engaged with guest speakers.
Through small group meetings, ICER Fellows produced tangible research outputs, including early-stage project brainstorming, refining research designs, pitching grant applications, and developing job market materials. These research advances were aided through the significant cross-discipline, cross-rank, and cross-institutional mentoring that occurred both formally and informally throughout ICER. With all of these efforts, cohort members pushed the boundaries of what CER can look like and the types of insights it can offer to political science.
Throughout their time together, ICER 2023 cohort members discussed the status and future of CER in political science. One key theme of the ICER 2023 cohort discussions focused on the politics of expertise. At the core of these debates was the issue of how political science research has always been and continues to be mired in power relations. Political scientists working across the world already draw on the on-the-ground expertise of community members and community leaders. By having direct conversations about whose knowledge is considered valuable, and naming the explicit and implicit relationships between scholars and communities, CER is a mode of knowledge production that requires scholars to credit the sources of knowledge and makes scholars accountable for providing mutual benefits.
“(…) As scholars of color have long faced disproportionate professional punishments for conducting scholarship that is community engaged, the issue editors are also committed to showcasing diversity among scholars.”A second major theme of the discussions was the role of CER in improving the rigor of political science research. As political scientists have turned their attention to documenting, explaining, and addressing democratic erosion in the United States and the rise of authoritarianism worldwide, CER is one mode through which scholars can, in the words of Dr. Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, learn from “people living with the raw contradictions of democracy.”
Finally, the cohort addressed the real-world costs and challenges of conducting CER. Conducting ethical and rigorous CER is resource intensive and requires a significant amount of time, iterative project development, relationship building, and more. Traditional promotion and tenure standards that reward a high number of publications in a short time frame, then, work to disincentivize CER. It is vital for scholars to make their work and its impact legible to academic institutions, and for academic institutions to invest in and reward CER.
On the final day of the summer institute, ICER Fellows met for a last round of small group meetings, and there was a general consensus among the Fellows that it would be useful to have a guide on how to conduct ethical and rigorous civically engaged research, especially during an era of contentious politics, resistance and reckonings, and eroding legitimacy of political institutions. Through a collective effort, the cohort succeeded in actualizing a special issue on civically engaged research.
Political scientists across subfields are encouraged to submit a manuscript to the Politics, Groups, and Identities Special Issue on “How to Conduct Civically Engaged Research in A Time of Contentious Politics.” The special issue will address the ethics, research design, methodology, and project management involved in developing, implementing, and communicating results from civically engaged research. Building on earlier cohorts’ significant contributions in contextualizing, defining, and motivating CER, this special issue is committed to showcasing exemplary cases of CER, demonstrating methodological pluralism in CER, including scholarship across epistemological traditions, and centering academia-community research relationships based in a variety of global contexts. Finally, as scholars of color have long faced disproportionate professional punishments for conducting scholarship that is community engaged, the issue editors are also committed to showcasing diversity among scholars.
Paper submissions to this special issue are due on December 31, 2023. The special issue editors are Drs. Shelly Arsneault (California State University, Fullerton), Angie Bautista-Chavez (Arizona State University), Stephanie Chan (Lafayette College), and Valerie Martinez-Ebers (University of North Texas). We encourage scholars to join us in investing in CER.