Research

When it comes to research around Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities, there is not enough research that comes directly from our communities. The data that is out there is often not survivor-led, has limited definitions of what violence means, and often lumps our communities together, without recognizing our varied & nuanced struggles. Our Institute focuses on ensuring that the curricula and research we do are survivor-centered, hold expansive definitions of violence, and honor the different and connected forms of struggles our communities are experiencing. Due to the success of our IPAR program, past research projects, and continued requests for trainings, we ensure that our research is community driven and community owned.

“Stories belong to us and in what we carry in our everyday lives, not in academia and institutions.”

- IPAR Researcher

What is IPAR?

Intergenerational Participatory Action Research (IPAR) is a groundbreaking, national study that centers women, queer, immigrant, and survivors’ experiences. IPAR gathers data on what constitutes violence in our communities, what we need, and how we have been addressing and resisting the violence in our communities’ lives. This is AAPI Women Lead’s first national intergenerational participatory action research (IPAR) project on the intersections of race and gender violence against Asian, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islander communities.

What Are We Trying to Understand?

Our national cohort aimed to identify the following: What are the types of violence against ANHPI communities? How do our communities understand and define violence? What are the connections between systemic and interpersonal violence against and within ANHPI communities? What are community-driven pathways to address the different forms of violence against our communities?

Read Our Report “Naming Our Rage, Building Our Power“

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1st IPAR Cohort & Advisors:

“Naming Our Rage, Building Our Power”

Community Research Advisors

Dr. Connie Wun
Dr. Katherine Nasol
Dr. Lily Wong
Dr. Valerie Francisco-Menchavez
Matāpuna Levenson

1st Cohort Findings

1.

Our communities’ understandings of gender and racial violence is deeply connected to the different histories of how we are tied to the United States.

2.

We experience violence often in mundane and invisible ways.

3.

We recommend addressing basic needs for & with survivors including consistent financial support, food, medical care, housing, and more.

1.

Our communities’ understandings of gender and racial violence is deeply connected to the different histories of how we are tied to the United States.

2.

We experience violence often in mundane and invisible ways.

3.

We recommend addressing basic needs for & with survivors including consistent financial support, food, medical care, housing, and more.

What is the origin of IPAR?

AAPI Women Lead’s IPAR’s origin story is rooted in decades of organizing, movement-building, and research based in abolitionist, intersectional, Black feminist, and queer women of color frameworks. The following timeline offers how such movements have shaped and created the lineages to our research.

2000s-2010s
The co-founders, Jenny Wun and Dr. Connie Wun, of the organization are studying, teaching, organizing, or working with community-based organizations including San Francisco Women Against Rape and Filipino Advocates for Justice (formerly Filipinos for Affirmative Action) to create a new world.

2015-2018
Dr. Connie Wun, as the Director of Research for the DataCenter, works with Young Women’s Freedom Center to build out their community-driven research program. Dr. Wun works with the National Asian Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence (NAPIESV) to further their community-driven research on gender based violence against ANHPI communities. Findings from both experiences suggest that there is a great need for community-driven research and that there is limited research, particularly community-based research, on racial and gender-based violence against ANHPI communities.

AAPI Women Lead (AAPIWL) developed trainings, workshops, and conferences to fundraise, build relationships, and facilitate community driven research. AAPIWL’s Movement Building Series workshops became one of the various ways the organization amplified community stories, detailed the history of violence against ANHPI communities, and began data collection on ANHPI stories. The Series held workshops and trainings that taught about racial and gender violence. It also served to educate attendees about the importance of community-driven research and became a way to recruit organizations to join in a future research program. Both the co-founders began fundraising for AAPI Women Lead, while funding the operations through their volunteer work or their personal credit cards.

Through the AAPI Women Lead co-founders’ specific experiences as survivors and work with ANHPI survivors’ across ages including youth participation action research, education and organizing, AAPI Women Lead saw a great need for intergenerational story-collecting, telling, teaching, and movement building. In 2018, Dr. Connie Wun conceptualized and created Intergenerational Participatory Action Research.