This edited collection explores and illustrates the nature of research for social justice. Drawing on a diverse range of social research projects, it examines research with and for young people, marginalised communities and those who work to further social justice and human rights goals.
Can our research create conditions for people to flourish? What kinds of questions do we ask about the social world and how knowledge is produced? Does our approach to research itself matter?
Providing key examples of the tools, processes and outcomes of research relevant to social justice, including where and how these frameworks can be used in the design and execution of research, this is a much-needed intervention to social research methodology.
1. Researching for social justice: an introduction - Kathryn McGarry, Ciara Bradley and Gloria Kirwan PART I: Contextualising and theorising research for social justice 2. Epistemic privilege as a social justice issue: knowing injustice and justice for knowers - Kathryn McGarry 3. Epistemology, research design and social justice - Ciara Bradley and Lynsey Kavanagh 4. Using a social justice lens in research engagements for community work and youth work practice - Sinead McMahon, Ciara Bradley and Hilary Tierney PART II: Designing and operationalising methodologies for social justice 5. Using Poststructural Policy Analysis for social justice - Sinead McMahon 6. Research with deaf and hard-of-hearing women: reimagining social justice as flourishing - Grainne Meehan 7. Sanctuary: trespassing the enclosure of rights - David Donovan 8. Using peer engagement to support the participation of people who use drugs in research - Brian Melaugh and Andy O’Hara PART III: Exploring case studies in research for social justice 9. Beyond research extractivism in environmental justice research - Jamie Gorman 10. When objects speak louder than words: material ethnography in social justice research - Gloria Kirwan and Calvin Swords 11. An expanded conceptualisation and definition of engaged research - Rory Hearne 12. Social justice as tool and process in research: progressing insight into children’s right to participation through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis - Breda O’Driscoll and Gloria Kirwan 13. The potential for Q-Methodology in promoting human rights and social justice: a case of social workers in practice research - Johanna O’Shea 14. Reflecting as a pracademic in policy land: using research and practice to advance social justice in the hate crime policy domain - Seamus Taylor 15. Concluding thoughts - Kathryn McGarry, Ciara Bradley and Gloria Kirwan
Kathryn McGarry is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Social Studies, Maynooth University, Ireland. Ciara Bradley is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Social Studies, Maynooth University, Ireland. Gloria Kirwan is Senior Lecturer in the Graduate School of Healthcare Management at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Social Studies, Maynooth University, Ireland.
Reviews for Rights and Social Justice in Research: Advancing Methodologies for Social Change
“Challenging and unequal times call for research linked to social change. This book provides valuable examples of research for social justice across a range of areas. Insightful, thought-provoking and absolutely necessary.” Louise Warwick-Booth, Leeds Beckett University
