Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities

In this open letter, Eve Tuck calls on communities, researchers, and educators to reconsider the long-term impact of "damage-centered" research—research that intends to document peoples' pain and brokenness to hold those in power accountable for their oppression. This kind of research operates with a flawed theory of change: it is often used to leverage reparations or resources for marginalized communities yet simultaneously reinforces and reinscribes a one-dimensional notion of these people as depleted, ruined, and hopeless. Tuck urges communities to institute a moratorium on damage-centered research to reformulate the ways research is framed and conducted and to reimagine how findings might be used by, for, and with communities.

[1]  Baruch A. Brody.  Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property , 2010, Kennedy Institute of Ethics journal.

[2]  Eve Tuck,et al.  Re-visioning Action: Participatory Action Research and Indigenous Theories of Change , 2009 .

[3]  M. Guishard.  The False Paths, the Endless Labors, the Turns Now This Way and Now That: Participatory Action Research, Mutual Vulnerability, and the Politics of Inquiry , 2009 .

[4]  Eve Tuck,et al.  Theorizing Back: An Approach to Participatory Policy Analysis , 2008 .

[5]  Jerry Moting Bangcawayan,et al.  The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples , 2008 .

[6]  Kevin Rudd,et al.  Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples , 2008 .

[7]  H. Stark.  Wasáse: Indigenous pathways of action and freedom , 2006 .

[8]  Michelle Fine,et al.  Sexuality Education and Desire: Still Missing after All These Years. , 2006 .

[9]  J. Quin.  The Year of Magical Thinking , 2005, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[10]  Craig Gingrich‐Philbrook.  Autoethnography's Family Values: Easy Access to Compulsory Experiences , 2005 .

[11]  D. Gillborn.  Education policy as an act of white supremacy: whiteness, critical race theory and education reform , 2005 .

[12]  Peter R. Kearly.  The Melancholy of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Hidden Grief (review) , 2001 .

[13]  D. Oldroyd.  Inheriting shame: The story of eugenics and racism in America , 2001 .

[14]  Linda T. Smith.  Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples , 2000 .

[15]  Dennis Fowler,et al.  Net News , 1999, The Lancet.

[16]  S. Aitken,et al.  Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other Real-And-Imagined Places , 1998 .

[17]  Charles Oppenheim,et al.  Copyright issues , 1998, Learn. Publ..

[18]  Janice Radway,et al.  Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination , 1996 .

[19]  E. Soja.  Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other Real-and-Imagined Places , 1996 .

[20]  Henri Lefebvre,et al.  The production of space , 1992 .

[21]  S. Graham.  "Most of the subjects were White and middle class": Trends in published research on African Americans in selected APA journals, 1970–1989. , 1992 .

[22]  Vine Deloria,et al.  Comfortable Fictions and the Struggle for Turf@@@The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies , 1992 .

[23]  O. Fals-Borda,et al.  Action and Knowledge: Breaking the Monopoly With Participatory Action Research , 1991 .

[24]  M. Fine.  Framing Dropouts: Notes on the Politics of an Urban Public High School , 1991 .

[25]  Toni Morrison,et al.  Beloved: A Novel , 1987 .

[26]  J. Kristeva,et al.  Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art , 1982 .

[27]  Sondra Perl.  Understanding Composing , 1980, College Composition & Communication.

[28]  Kenneth B. Clark,et al.  Emotional Factors in Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children , 1950 .

[29]  Kiri Davis.  A Girl Like Me , 2009 .

[30]  B. Smith,et al.  When School Reform Goes Wrong , 2009 .

[31]  Marie Battiste,et al.  Research Ethics for Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: Institutional and Researcher Responsibilities , 2008 .

[32]  Susan H. Fuhrman,et al.  Moving Every Child Ahead: From NCLB Hype to Meaningful Educational Opportunity , 2008 .

[33]  Yvonna S. Lincoln,et al.  Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies , 2008 .

[34]  S. Grande.  Red Pedagogy , 2008 .

[35]  B. Brody,et al.  Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property , 2007, Encyclopedia of Information Ethics and Security.

[36]  G. Vizenor.  Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence , 1998 .

[37]  M. Foucault,et al.  Foucault and his interlocutors , 1997 .

[38]  Robin D. G. Kelley,et al.  Yo' mama's disfunktional! : fighting the culture wars in urban America , 1997 .

[39]  S. Lamb.  The Trouble with Blame: Victims, Perpetrators, and Responsibility , 1996 .

[40]  Patricia J. Williams,et al.  The Alchemy of Race and Rights , 1991 .

[41]  Gloria E. Anzaldúa.  Borderlands: The new mestiza = La frontera , 1987 .