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Recently, I had come across a researcher who identified herself as an ally to a group that she studied. This researcher at the time was a postdoc and some of the participants expressed concerns that she was building a career off of their voices.

I decided to look at the researcher’s publications. Every single paper, article, book chapter, art, and so on was about this group. To put it bluntly, her entire research career was about studying this specific group. Even past the postdoc, her sole research focus was this group.

Were the participants wrong with this concern?

I have a more detailed analysis coming up about this in a week from now, but can you answer the tough questions that might be thrown at you?

Can you answer if you are building a career from the voices of others? Can you answer if you might be displacing researchers who are part of the group (insiders)? Can you answer if your own allyship might be harmful?

This current discussion is happening with allistic (non-autistic) researchers studying autistic folks. Some allistic folks are upset that autistic researchers are calling them out over harmful behavior, centering themselves, building a career off the voices of autistic folks, and ultimately are displacing autistic researchers in favor of themselves while spreading harmful and incorrect things about autism.

White ally researchers who study marginalized or minoritized groups, what are you doing to prevent yourself from being the above? Are you collaborating with researchers who are insiders of the group? Are you studying other things besides those groups so that you can point to other things you are doing besides that area of research? Are you carefully thinking of ways you can best minimize harm?

This is not pointed at anyone specific (yet), but I want you to sincerely think on this so that you are reducing as much harm as possible. If this feels like I am calling you out, seriously think on that. You might be doing harm to your own participants and to the very group that you are studying.

If you want to discuss with someone about this and pay them, I would encourage you to take a look at sahibzada mayed (صاحبزادہ مائد) and similar folks who do this type of focus.

Additionally, you can also check out this Google Document that will give some insight here as well: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OBViDEMBh9lYndX-_gNI_5LNMPfMFhCA-Mek6M-VnGI/edit

Anyways, next week will be a more concrete discussion of this.
Recently, I had come across a researcher who identified herself as an ally to a group that she studied. This researcher at the time was a postdoc and some of the participants expressed concerns that she was building a career off of their voices.

I decided to look at the researcher’s publications. Every single paper, article, book chapter, art, and so on was about this group. To put it bluntly, her entire research career was about studying this specific group. Even past the postdoc, her sole research focus was this group.

Were the participants wrong with this concern?

I have a more detailed analysis coming up about this in a week from now, but can you answer the tough questions that might be thrown at you?

Can you answer if you are building a career from the voices of others? Can you answer if you might be displacing researchers who are part of the group (insiders)? Can you answer if your own allyship might be harmful?

This current discussion is happening with allistic (non-autistic) researchers studying autistic folks. Some allistic folks are upset that autistic researchers are calling them out over harmful behavior, centering themselves, building a career off the voices of autistic folks, and ultimately are displacing autistic researchers in favor of themselves while spreading harmful and incorrect things about autism.

White ally researchers who study marginalized or minoritized groups, what are you doing to prevent yourself from being the above? Are you collaborating with researchers who are insiders of the group? Are you studying other things besides those groups so that you can point to other things you are doing besides that area of research? Are you carefully thinking of ways you can best minimize harm?

This is not pointed at anyone specific (yet), but I want you to sincerely think on this so that you are reducing as much harm as possible. If this feels like I am calling you out, seriously think on that. You might be doing harm to your own participants and to the very group that you are studying.

If you want to discuss with someone about this and pay them, I would encourage you to take a look at sahibzada mayed (صاحبزادہ مائد) and similar folks who do this type of focus.

Additionally, you can also check out this Google Document that will give some insight here as well: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OBViDEMBh9lYndX-_gNI_5LNMPfMFhCA-Mek6M-VnGI/edit

Anyways, next week will be a more concrete discussion of this. I’ll also talk about why I really dislike the word ally in that post, but I chose to not focus on that here because my follow up post will illuminate quite nicely why.