(Re)Building Bridges In Communities through CER: Dialoguing for Social Justice

Open Sessions (Paper Presentation Sessions)

Community-Engaged Research (CER) is often lauded for its successes: meaningful partnerships, collaborative knowledge production, and community impact. Yet, the realities of engaging communities in and through research are often complex, messy, and relationally demanding. Grounded in a commitment to social justice in turbulent times, this session invites participants into a reflective and practice-oriented conversation about what it means to (re)build, maintain, sustain, and transform bridges within communities and research partnerships. Rather than presenting polished models of collaboration, the session foregrounds vulnerability, transparency, and collective learning as central to ethical CER practice. It creates space for honest dialogue about the challenges, tensions, and repair work that shape community-engaged scholarship and social justice research. Presenters will engage in reflexive thinking on the relational labour of CER. Issues such as relationship brokering, navigating fractured community partnerships, shifts in project vision between researchers and community collaborators, and adapting to unexpected changes after funding has been secured will be discussed. Beyond these challenges, the session will also offer insights and strategies for dealing with leadership turnover within partner organizations, data sovereignty, sustaining trust over long project timelines, financial compensation, and the emotional labour required to conduct research for social change.