Hard to Reach or Easy to Ignore? | The Truth About Community Research, Anger & Power

 Why do we let 'experts' from outside our communities decide what we need? Today, we’re talking about the politics of help, the myth of the 'hard to reach' and why genuinely community-led research has the potential to solve global crises like suicide and inequality. From Black maternal health to Black men’s mental health, in this episode Aiwan and Tamanda explore what could happen when money, power and agency move directly into the hands of communities. When communities set the agenda, choose the questions, shape the process and decide what counts as change. Aiwan reflects on entering Tamanda’s research world, being baffled by its language and slowly realising that terms like “participatory action research”, “community engagement” and “co-production” point to a pivotal question: who gets to decide what matters and what change is needed? From there, the episode moves into the anger that surfaces when communities recognise how often they have been studied, used, consulted, underpaid and discarded. Aiwan speaks honestly about the fury of realising how often “help” is designed without the people it is meant to serve. Tamanda unpacks why this anger is not a distraction from the research, but part of the process of knowledge production. Together, they explore the difference between research that extracts and research that heals. 🎙️ In this episode:Beyond the Buzzwords: Stripping away research jargon to understand the truthsThe Extraction Economy: How communities have been "used and discarded" by traditional research institutionsResearch and Community Agency: What happens when we stop being the "subject" and start being the "architect"Setting the Agenda: Why the "most important problem" shouldn't be decided upstream by strangersRelational Research: Why connection is the only real antidote to a disconnected worldFrom Local to Global: How community-led insights can fix our hyper-connected but deeply fractured and unequal world 🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7f5vKA-hYNQ🔁 Share with someone who believes communities should lead the change that affects them☕ Support the show: https://buymeacoffee.com/rigourandflowPlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.