EJ-DCR
AZ(LAND) understands the barrier that exist between academia and community knowledge. That is why we are working to connect academic research to community knowledge through reciprocal relationship building. We are currently developing an 'Environmental Justice Digital Community Repository or the EJ-DCR.' This academic and community research tool will aid in promoting and prioritizing data access, data literacy, data sovereignty, and data mobilization. This is while we center environmental sustainability and racial justice that can address inequities related to food insecurity, the heat island impact, water scarcity, air pollution, and so much more.
Community Learning Circles
Our community learning circles work to build relationships, trust, and engage in knowledge sharing between academic researchers, their expertise, and work with community resident knowledge and lived experiences. We know that research can only be strengthened when we work to engage in authentic dialogue and collaborations that disrupt the current research model in which the researcher poses the research topic and only seeks to survey the community. When research expertise, knowledge, tools, and processes are shared with community members we are able to expose, strengthen, and build more innovative solutions to addressing the ensuing impacts of climate change on our Sonoran desert and urban communities.
