“You’re in a Ferrari. I’m Waiting for the Bus”: Confronting Tensions in Community-University Partnerships for Publicly Deployed Technologies

There have been increasing calls in HCI research to build sustained partnerships with communities that go beyond surface-level engagement. However, little is known about how these communities perceive such partnerships and their impact. In collaboration with a community-based organization, we co-analyzed a series of interviews conducted by the organization that sought to understand the impacts of publicly deployed technologies and university-led research initiatives on local communities, and to explore strategies for more equitable community-university partnerships. Our findings reveal that local communities often perceive technology companies and academic institutions as potential threats due to their shared role in a series of projects, including policing, surveillance, exclusion, and technological bias against minoritized groups. While interviewees seek material benefits, sustained relationships, and meaningful accountability from universities, we find that academia’s institutional priorities create tensions when forming effective community-university partnerships. Drawing from la paperson's concept of a Third University, we argue that HCI researchers and academic institutions must contend with these complexities while taking a decolonizing approach to community-university partnerships, extending beyond research contexts to prioritize community interests through revestment.