Abstract: Centering Community In Practice: Reflections on Positionality, Power, and Knowledge In Social Work Research (Society for Social Work and Research 31st Annual Conference)

Schedule:

Friday, January 22, 2027

Golden Gate 4 (Hilton San Francisco Union Square)

* noted as presenting author

Monica De La Cruz, PhD, Affiliate, University of California, Berkeley, CA

Ruta Lauleva Lua'iufi Aiono, Doula Coordinator, Mana Pasefika

Aresha Auzenne, Community Researcher, University of California, Davis, CA

Sabra Bell, Community Advisory Board Member, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Maile Chand, BA, Community Researcher, University of California, Berkeley, CA

Anjeanette Coats, Community Researcher, University of California, Berkeley, CA

Ronnique Currie, Student, University of California, Berkeley

Manufou Liaiga-Anoa'i, Board Member, Asian Pacific Institute for Congressional Studies

Anna Mahina, Community Advisory Board Member, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Fatima Oliver, Community Advisory Board Member, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Breezy Powell, Community Researcher, University of California, Berkeley, CA

Jazlyn Raggio, Graduate Student Researcher, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Michaela Taylor, MPH, Senior Program Manager, Expecting Justice, San Francisco, CA

Miracle Te'o, Community Researcher, University of California, Berkeley, CA

Fine Tuitupou, Undergraduate Researcher, University of California, Berkeley

Sophia Tupuola, Community Advisory Board Member, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Nani Wilson, Community Advisory Board Member, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Background

There has been a growing push to engage communities most impacted by social welfare research as active partners in shaping how knowledge is produced. However, meaningful community engagement requires time, trust, and institutional backing, and academic settings are often not structured to support this work. Additionally, community engagement requires researchers to contend with their own positionality and biases, yet doctoral programs often do not emphasize these as training competencies. As a result, community engagement efforts can be superficial or performative, particularly when researchers are not members of the communities they study.

Purpose

This presentation will describe approaches to authentically center community in research when the researcher does not share the racial or ethnic identities of the communities involved. Drawing from a community-engaged dissertation on public assistance narratives and experiences of racism among Black and Pacific Islander women, this study explores how positionality, power, and accountability shape the research process.

Methods

This presentation draws on a community-engaged dissertation study conducted in partnership with community advisory boards and community researchers. Using a reflexive approach, it examines how decisions were made across study design, data collection, and interpretation, with particular attention to moments of tension, power, and accountability.

Results

The presentation will describe the process of centering community through partnership with community advisory boards and community researchers, and the real tensions that emerged in attempting to do this work well. Early conversations with community members revealed differing perspectives about whether a researcher from outside the community should undertake the work, requiring the researcher to navigate how to remain accountable to community perspectives while still moving the research forward. The presentation will further discuss how community members acted as co-creators of knowledge, shaping study design and data interpretation, and guiding dissemination.

Conclusions and Implications

Centering community in research requires trust and relationship building, attention to power dynamics, shared decision-making, and researcher reflexivity and accountability. Findings suggest that doctoral training programs and academic institutions must better support community-engaged research by prioritizing building relationships with community through funding and time, and preparing researchers to navigate positionality and accountability. This work offers a practical example of centering community expertise in social work research and highlights the institutional changes needed to support this work at scale.