The University Should Be a Borderland, not a Border Guard: A Conversation with Michelle Fine

Michelle Fine is a distinguished social psychologist at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a leading practitioner of Critical Participatory Action Research (C-PAR), research that takes on issues of injustice and social power through partnerships with community members most directly affected by those issues. She and her colleagues at CUNY's Public Science Project have worked with incarcerated women, queer youth, New York City high-schoolers, and others. The resulting research is more ethical, they argue, and it produces deeper knowledge.

This episode explores the values and practices that ground Michelle Fine's belief in participatory, community-engaged research and teaching. But it opens out to a larger question: what would it look like for the higher ed as a whole to be fully committed and accountable to communities in crisis?

You can learn more about the work of Fine and her colleagues on the website of CUNY's Public Science Project, which also offers readings and resources on Critical Participatory Action Research