Community geography for precarious researchers: examining the intricacies of mutually beneficial and co-produced knowledge

At the center of community geography is a commitment to mutually beneficial and co-produced knowledge. While the intricacies of managing these two commitments are often well-articulated for community partners, university faculty and their undergraduate students, the experiences of precariously positioned researchers (such as graduate students or those who work outside the university) remain under-examined. Therefore, through a reflection on the authors’ personal experiences facilitating community geography projects, this paper takes seriously the experiences of precariously positioned researchers. We highlight how the privileging of co-production creates moments of dissonance for precariously placed researcher’s experiences of mutually beneficial research. We argue that precarity, particularly when paired with privilege, results in heightened feelings of risk that may lead researchers to compromise their own ethics or values to ensure both the ongoing continuation of the partnership and the desired goals of the community partners. As we work to further establish community geography, we call for more nuanced considerations of how the entanglements fostered through co-production impact experiences of mutually beneficial research for differently positioned researchers, particularly for those situated within in the neoliberal university.