Anti-Racism Interim Governance Group: Community Research

Scotland is going to have a new structure – the Anti-Racism Observatory – to hold the Scottish Government and other public sector bodies to account for their commitment to anti-racism. The Observatory will host local, national and international expertise about how racism functions. It will help the Scottish Government deliver sustainable anti-racism policies and practices.

To make sure anti-racism infrastructure in Scotland works for people adversely affected by racism, the AIGG wanted to hear from adversely racialised community members directly. We believe anti-racism policies and practice will be more effective if this infrastructure incorporates the perspectives of people adversely affected by racism. We recognised that research in these communities consistently asks people to disclose their experiences of racism – we did not intend to replicate that.

Thank you

This programme of community research using Participatory methods was undertaken between Oct 2022 and June 2023. The approach to the research and the learnings have been documented in detail in the Community research report and summarised in the Executive summary”.

We are very grateful to community members who engaged with us to offer their insights and expertise about anti-racism infrastructure in Scotland. Without them, this work would not exist.
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Throughout this research project, we communicated with national strategic organisations working on “race equality”, regional organisations, local charities, and unconstituted groups to ensure our work was informed by a wide and diverse community across Scotland.

We also valued the generous contributions of community members who did not have any organisational or institutional affiliations. We communicated with over 500 organisations, groups and individual people who provided their insights about the development of this infrastructure.