Gathering Ground
Gathering Ground
Mary F. Morten
Episode 88: Research as Resistance: 25 Years of the Institute for Research on Race
1 hour 2 minutes Posted Jun 17, 2026 at 11:35 pm.
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Summary
What does it mean to do research that refuses to look away and to protect that work when the political climate demands retreat? In this episode of “Gathering Ground,” host Mary Morten sits down with Dr. Amanda Lewis, current director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago, and Dr. Beth Richie, the institute's former director, to mark 25 years of community-centered, justice-oriented scholarship. Together, they trace IRRPP's origins in faculty activism, make the case for engaged research as a more rigorous — not less rigorous — approach to knowledge-making, and speak plainly about what it means to keep saying the word "race" when institutions around the country are flinching.
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