We seek to bring together Los Angeles-based mutual aid organizers, community defenders, popular educators, and academic- and poverty scholars alike who believe in asking and investigating the questions that we need to answer to better understand the world we need to build. 

Together, we will continue to grow autonomous research infrastructure embedded within our mutual aid and community defense ecosystem; produce research driven and determined by the most pressing health and social concerns of the people; and collectivize and demystify knowledge production in formations that bring together encampment, mutual aid, movement, and academic scholars.  

All of us make, share, and use knowledge everyday to face problems, tell stories, and build solutions, but not all of our knowledge is valued or legitimated the same.  Academic institutions, public and corporate researchers, and other pieces of the non-profit industrial complex often hold too much power over shaping how community experiences are (mis)represented and (un)known. Doing our own research can be a part of a process of practicing self-determination through strategically challenging hegemonic narratives and authority, and bolstering the experiences, visions, and demands of our communities.