Collaborations for Social Justice

Andrew L. Barlow, a long-time civil rights activist, is visiting associate professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, and professor of sociology at Diablo Valley College. He is also the author of Between Fear and Hope: Globalization and Race in the United States.

Academics who want their work to be useful in public policy debates would do well to use the case studies in this book as a reference manual. Barlow’s contributors provide real life examples of the way social science research can frame issues and validate community demands for change—without giving up the methodological rigor, creativity, and objectivity scientific inquiry requires. The book provides refreshingly clear-eyed accounts of the tensions and rewards of working with community-based groups, while consistently reminding us of the power dynamics that underlay the production of knowledge and its use in political debates. Collaborations for Social Justice should be required reading for introductory and graduate courses in the social sciences, schools of law, education, and environmental studies, and for new grantmakers. It is a little gem of a book, full of nuggets of insight and wisdom about social change work in contemporary America.

• Chapter 1 IntroductionChapter 2 Transformative Collaborations: Professionals and Minority Community PowerChapter 3 Creating a New World: Transformative Lawyering for Social ChangeChapter 4 Organizing Education: Academic Research and Community Organizing for Social ReformChapter 5 LULUs of the Field: Research and Activism for Environmental JusticeChapter 6 The Production of Knowledge and Community Empowerment: Organizing and Research on Youth ViolenceChapter 7 Private Troubles and Public Issues