Benefiting by Design (PDF)

The presence of women of color within the practical applications of social science research findings is severely limited, since spaces where and when women of color enter the arenas of research methodology, research question and intervention design and knowledge generation is often that of the other. Benefitting by Design addresses this limitation. It does so by locating the experience and knowledge of women of color as its central theme, with sections of the text referring to emerging trends that attend to the need for greater representation of women of color in research and academic settings. A key theme is the dislodging of currently accepted positions for the experience of women of color as marginalized, and subsumed under normative modes of examination to central positions in areas of social science research and clinical practice. This is in response to the typical assumption of the need to 'fix' women of color be it based on their immigration status, sexual orientation, race, culture, class or spiritual practice. Benefitting By Design attends to the salient contexts of the lives of women of color from an emic perspective, by providing models for addressing the limitations that result from exclusion, and strategies for centering the experiential knowledge of women of color in social science research and practice that is designed for their benefit.