ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some issues that arose in author's own research on autism advocacy in Canada and the United States, addressing the wider implications for other interpretive researchers who seek to engage communities in their research. It reviews community-based research and the notion and revival of the idea of community itself before addressing the broader challenges associated with research that purports to engage communities, especially communities that might be defined as vulnerable or marginalized. Community-based research (CBR) or community-based participatory research (CBPR) is not so much a singular, unifying framework as it is a family of approaches or orientations to research. Models of CBPR have already begun to emerge in autistic communities, including Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) in the United States. The chapter discusses some of the tensions inherent in research that engages or implicates communities and concludes by asking whether community-based research approaches are actually interpretive enough.
