Strangers at the Gate: Gaining Access, Building Rapport, and Co-Constructing Community-Based Research
Abstract
This paper is about the work we do to create productive partnerships in community settings: developing relationships, demonstrating commitments, and overcoming personal and institutional barriers to community-based design research. Through an ethnographic account of the elements of community-based research normally elided from reports of design process, we explore how the impact of institutional histories and personal relationships went beyond simply identifying potential partners, but fundamentally guided the research questions and approach. We examine the different roles researchers play - researcher, confidant, advocate, interloper, invader, and collaborator - and how those roles create particular relations in the field. The contribution of this work is the development of a reflective account of the research in order to evaluate knowledge production, rigor, and advance methods for engaging in community-based research.
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Researchers have sought to empower data workers and center their agency in driving transformative political changes, in line with HCI/CSCW tradition.
“In line with the longstanding tradition in HCI and CSCW to advocate for methodologies that center communities’ perspectives [31, 76], needs and capabilities [59, 60, 144], researchers have also sought to empower data workers and center their agency in driving transformative political changes.”
From 'The plan is just survival': Data Work in Kenya and the Regime of Entrapment (2026) · cites this paper as [76]
Cites
Citizenship in flux: The figure of the activist citizen
Isin, E. F. (2009) · Subjectivity · doi:10.1057/sub.2009.25 · Cited by 1,011 · see citing works
Health promotion as activism: building community capacity to effect social change
Parker, A., Kantroo, V., Lee, H. R., Osornio, M., Sharma, M., & Grinter, R. (2012) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2207676.2207692 · Cited by 84 · see citing works
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Harrington, C. N., Borgos-Rodriguez, K., & Piper, A. M. (2019) · Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3290605.3300823 · Cited by 148 · see citing works
Suresh, H., Gomez, S. R., Nam, K. K., & Satyanarayan, A. (2021) · Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3411764.3445088 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
Till, S., Farao, J., Coleman, T. L., Shandu, L. D., Khuzwayo, N., Muthelo, L., Mbombi, M. O., Bopane, M., Motlhatlhedi, M., Mabena, G., et al. (2022) · Participatory Design Conference 2022: Volume 1 · doi:10.1145/3536169.3537786 · Cited by 65 · see citing works
Socio-materiality of trust: co-design with a resource limited community organisation
Clarke, R. E., Briggs, J., Armstrong, A., MacDonald, A., Vines, J., Flynn, E., & Salt, K. (2021) · CoDesign · doi:10.1080/15710882.2019.1631349 · Cited by 63 · see citing works
Methodological Standards in Accessibility Research on Motor Impairments: A Survey
Sarsenbayeva, Z., van Berkel, N., Velloso, E., Goncalves, J., & Kostakos, V. (2023) · ACM Computing Surveys · doi:10.1145/3543509 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
The Making of Performative Accuracy in AI Training: Precision Labor and Its Consequences
Zhang, B. Z., Yang, T., Miceli, M., Haimson, O. L., & Thomas, M. (2025) · Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713112 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
'The plan is just survival': Data Work in Kenya and the Regime of Entrapment
Kapania, S., Yang, T., Abdelkadir, N. A., Scheuerman, M. K., Miceli, M., Taylor, A. S., & Fox, S. E. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3772318.3791097 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“In line with the longstanding tradition in HCI and CSCW to advocate for methodologies that center communities’ perspectives [31, 76], needs and capabilities [59, 60, 144], researchers have also sought to empower data workers and center their agency in driving transformative political changes.”
Self-citation
- Authors
- Le Dantec, C. A., & Fox, S.
- Affiliations
- Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
- University of Washington (US)
- ORCID
- Fox, Sarah
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2015-02-28
- Pages
- 1348-1358
- OpenAlex
- W2021493990
- Cited by
- 255
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 44.97
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Design Education and Practice
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management of Technology and Innovation › Innovative Approaches in Technology and Social Development
- Keywords
- research collaboration, researcher role, institutional barriers, interpersonal relationships, knowledge production, research rigor, community participation
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