ABSTRACT
My (Sarah A. Lovell) decision to adopt community-engaged research was driven by an interest in using research to achieve goals of social justice. While conducting interviews and working with the results of my master’s thesis, I had become acutely aware of how one-directional the relationship between participants and researchers can be in traditional research. The feminist methodologies I had adopted suggested that the interview process should be an empowering experience for the participant as the researcher in valuing and validating the participant’s perspectives. However, like many geographers who have adopted activist and participatory approaches, I found this to be a fairly shallow level of empowerment and commitment to the participant.
